uld be attracted by her, that he should love to linger near
her, watching the dark flush come and go across her face, seeking to call
the fire into her dark eyes was another matter, and quite comprehensible;
for the girl was wonderfully handsome, with a bold, voluptuous beauty
which invited while it dared. But considered in any other light than
that of an animal, she repelled. At times when, for her ends, it seemed
worth the exertion, she would assume a certain wayward sweetness, but her
acting was always clumsy and exaggerated, capable of deceiving no one but
a fool.

Cyril, at all events, was not taken in by it. One evening, at a Bohemian
gathering, the _entree_ to which was notoriety rather than character,
they had been talking together for some considerable time when, wishing
to speak to Cyril, I strolled up to join them. As I came towards them
she moved away, her dislike for me being equal to mine for her; a thing
which was, perhaps, well for me.

"Miss Fawley prefers two as company to three," I observed, looking after
her retreating figure.

"I am afraid she finds you what we should call an anti-sympathetic
element," he replied, laughing.

"Do you like her?" I asked him, somewhat bluntly.

His eyes rested upon her as she stood in the doorway, talking to a small,
black-bearded man who had just been introduced to her. After a few
moments she went out upon his arm, and then Cyril turned to me.

"I think her," he replied, speaking, as was necessary, very low, "the
embodiment of all that is evil in womanhood. In old days she would have
been a Cleopatra, a Theodora, a Delilah. To-day, lacking opportunity,
she is the 'smart woman' grubbing for an opening into society--and old
Fawley's daughter. I'm tired; let us go home."

His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few people thought of
connecting clever, handsome Geraldine Fawley with "Rogue Fawley," Jew
renegade, ex-gaol bird, and outside broker; who, having expectations from
his daughter, took care not to hamper her by ever being seen in her
company. But no one who had once met the father could ever forget the
relationship while talking to the daughter. The older face, with its
cruelty, its cunning, and its greed stood reproduced, feature for
feature, line for line. It was as though Nature, for an artistic freak,
had set herself the task of fashioning hideousness and beauty from
precisely the same materials. Between the leer of the man and the