and Penelope
alone making no move to go, since Kitty had offered to send them home
in her car "at any old time." Mallory paused as he was making his
farewells to the two girls.

"And am I permitted--may I have the privilege of calling?" he asked
with one of his odd lapses into a quaintly elaborate manner that was
wholly un-English.

"Yes, do. We shall be delighted."

"My thanks." And with a slight bow he left them.

Later on, when everyone else had gone, the Seymours, together with
Penelope and Nan, drew round the fire for a final few minutes' yarn.

"Well, how do you like Kitty's latest lion?" asked Barry, lighting a
cigarette.

"I think he's a dear," declared Penelope warmly. "I liked him
immensely--what I saw of him."

"He's such an extraordinary faculty for reading people," chimed in
Kitty, puffing luxuriously at a tiny gold-tipped cigarette.

"Part of a writer's stock in trade, of course," replied Barry. "But
he's a clever chap."

"Too clever, I think," said Nan. "He fills one with a desire to have
one's soul carefully fitted up with frosted glass windows."

Penelope laughed.

"What nonsense! I think he's a delightful person."

"Possibly. But, all the same, I think I'm frightened of people who
make me feel as if I'd no clothes on."

"Nan!"

"It's quite true. Your most dazzling get-up wouldn't make an atom of
difference to his opinion of the real 'you' underneath it all. Why,
one might just as well have no pretensions to good looks when talking
to a man like that! It's sheer waste of good material."

"Well, he's rather likely to want to get at the real 'you' of anybody
he meets," interpolated Barry. "He was badly taken in once. His wife
was one of the prettiest women I've ever struck--and she was an
absolute devil."

"He's a widower, then!" exclaimed Penelope.

Barry shook his head regretfully.

"No such luck! That's the skeleton in poor old Peter's cupboard.
Celia Mallory is very much alive and having as good a time as she can
squeeze out of India."

"They live apart," explained Kitty. "She's one of those restless,
excitable women, always craving to be right in the limelight, and she
simply couldn't stand Peter's literary work. She was frantically
jealous of it--wanted him to be dancing attendance on her all day long.
And when his work interfered with the process, as of course it was
bound to do, she made endless rows. She has money of her own, and
finally informed Peter