ed willingly enough, for the wine was wonderful. Sybil
leaned over so that their heads almost touched.

"Look at our host," she whispered. "What does he remind you of?"

Brooks glanced across the table, brilliant with its burden of old
silver, of cut-glass and hothouse flowers. Lord Arranmore's face,
notwithstanding his ready flow of conversation, seemed unusually still
and white--the skin drawn across the bones, even the lips pallid. The
sombreness of his costume, the glitter in his eyes, the icy coldness of
his lack of coloring, though time after time he set down his wineglass
empty, were curiously impressive. Brooks looked back into her face, his
eyes full of question.

"Mephistopheles," she whispered. "He is absolutely weird to-night. If
he sat and looked at me and we were alone I should shriek."

Lord Arranmore lifted a glass of champagne to the level of his head and
looked thoughtfully around the table.

"Come," he said, "a toast-to ourselves. Singly? Collectively. Lady
Caroom, I drink to the delightful memories with which you have peopled
Enton. Sybil, may you charm society as your mother has done. Brooks,
your very good health. May your entertainment this evening be a welcome
one.

"We will drink to all those things," Lady Caroom declared, "with
enthusiasm. But I am afraid your good wishes for Sybil are beyond any
hope of realization. She is far too honest to flourish in society. She
will probably marry a Bishop or a Cabinet Minister, and become engrossed
in theology or politics. You know how limiting that sort of thing is.
I am in deadly fear that she may become humdrum. A woman who really
studies or knows anything about anything can never be a really
brilliant woman."

"You--"

"Oh, I pass for being intelligent because I parade my ignorance so, just
as Sophie Mills is considered a paragon of morality because she is
always talking about running off with one of the boys in her husband's
regiment. It is a gigantic bluff, you know, but it comes off. Most
bluffs do come off if one is only daring enough."

"You must tell them that up at Redcliffe," Lord Arranmore remarked.

Sybil laughed heartily.

"Redcliffe is the one place where mother is dumb," she declared. "Up
there they look upon her as a stupid but well-meaning person. She is
absolutely afraid to open her mouth."

"They are so absurdly literal," Lady Caroom sighed, helping herself to
an infinitesimal portion of a wonderful savoury. "Don't talk