in a shimmer of silver gauze that
reminded one of a faintly scented moonlight, bent over and touched her
cheek with feverish lips.

"It is war to the knife," she laughed; and the peculiar radiance of
colour, which gave her beauty a character that was almost violent, made
her at the moment appear triumphant, exultant, barbaric. To Laura she
had never seemed more beautiful nor more unhappy. Then suddenly her
manner underwent a curious change, and her accustomed mask--the smiling
surface of a woman of the world--settled as if by magic upon her face.
Perry Bridewell was at the door, and she opened it for him with an
unconcern at which Laura wondered.

"Come in if you want to," she said coolly, "Laura doesn't mind."

She drew back into the middle of the room, fastening her glove with
insolent indifference, while his startled gaze hung upon her in an
amazement he lacked the mental readiness to hide.

"By Jove, are you going out?" he asked. "I thought you were downright
ill and I was about to call up the doctor. I'm jolly glad--I declare I
am," he added humbly.

From the sincere anxiety in his voice, Laura surmised at once that
Gerty's exasperation had preceded by some hours her cooler judgment. He
looked as uncomfortable as it was possible for a man of his optimistic
habit of mind to feel, and an evident humiliation was traced upon his
countenance as if by several hasty touches of a crayon pencil.

But his features were intended so manifestly to wear a look of cheerful
self-esteem that his dejection, honest as it was, produced an effect of
insincerity, and it seemed to Laura that his other and more natural
expression was still lying somewhere beneath this superficial remorse.
Considered as physical bulk he was impressive, she admitted, in a large,
ruddy, highly obvious fashion; then he appeared suddenly so stupid and
child-like in his discomfiture that she felt her heart softening in
spite of her convictions. At the instant he resembled nothing so much as
a handsome, good-humoured, but disobedient, dog patiently awaiting a
reprimand.

"On my word I'm jolly glad," he repeated, and stopped because he could
think of nothing further to say that did not sound foolish in his own
perturbed mind.

"Oh, I'm not utterly lacking in humanity," retorted Gerty, "and one has
to be not to admit a moral obligation to one's hostess. Besides," she
confessed, with smiling pleasantry, "I shall rather enjoy Ada Lawley's
face when she se