even more remarkable in Cynthia than the beauty
of her face was the perfection of every line and contour of her body;
the supple, swelling, lissom figure was full of absolute grace; she
could not have been awkward if she had tried. It was the characteristic
that chiefly earned her the admiration of men; women looked more often
at her face.

"Are you alone?" said Hubert, smiling, and holding out both his hands,
in which she impulsively placed her own.

"Quite alone. Madame has gone out; only the servants are in the house.
How charming! We can have a good long chat about everything!"

"Everything!" said Hubert, sinking with a sigh of relief into the low
chair that she drew forward. "I shall be only too happy. I have
stagnated since I saw you last--which was in March, I believe--an age
ago! It is now April, and I am absolutely ignorant as to what has been
going on during the last few weeks."

"You have been in the country?" laughed Cynthia. "How I pity you!"

"You do not like the country?"

"Not one little bit. I had enough of it when I was a child."

"You were brought up in the country, were you?" said Hubert carelessly.
"I should never have taken you for a country-bred girl--although your
physique does not speak of town-life, after all."

"Is that meant for a compliment?" said Cynthia, the clear color suddenly
rising in her cheeks. "Bah--I do not like compliments--from some people!
I should like to forget all about my early life--dull tiresome days! I
began to live only when I came to London."

"Which was when you were about fifteen, was it not? You have never told
me where you lived before that."

Cynthia made a little _moue_ of disgust.

"You have always been much too polite hitherto to ask unpleasant
questions. I tell you I want to forget those earlier years. If you must
know, I was at school."

"I beg your pardon," said Hubert; "I had no idea that the subject was so
unpleasant to you, or I would not have alluded to it, of course."

Cynthia gave him a quick look.

"You have a right to ask," she said, in a lower voice. "I suppose I
ought to tell you the whole story; but----"

There was strong reluctance in her voice.

"You need do nothing of the kind. I have no right at all; don't talk
nonsense, Cynthia. After all, what is the use of raking up old
reminiscences? I have always held that it is better to put the past
behind us--to live for the present and the future. All of us have
memories that we wo