ll lives at Versailles. She was
governess to Lady Clanarton's grandchildren, hence my presence yesterday
in those aristocratic circles."

"And you live here alone?"

"With my secretary--the fuzzyhaired young person who was just getting
rid of Mr. Miller for me when you arrived. We are a terribly advanced
couple, in our ideas, but we lead a thoroughly reputable life. I
sometimes think," she went on, with a sigh, "that all one's tendencies
towards the unusual can be got rid of in opinions. Susan, for
instance--that is my secretary's name--pronounces herself unblushingly
in favour of free love, but I don't think she has ever allowed a man to
kiss her in her life."

"Your own opinions?" he asked curiously. "I suppose they, too, are a
little revolutionary, so far as regards our social laws?"

"I dare not even define them," she acknowledged, "they are so entirely
negative. Somehow or other, I can't help thinking that the present
system will die out through the sheer absurdity of it. We really shan't
need a crusade against the marriage laws. The whole system is
committing suicide as fast as it can."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty-four," she answered promptly.

"And supposing you fell in love--taking it for granted that you have not
done so already--should you marry?"

Her eyes rested upon his, a little narrowed, curiously and pleasantly
reflective. All the time the corners of her sensitive mouth twitched a
little.

"To tell you the truth," she confided, with a somewhat evasive air, "I
have been so busy thinking out life for other people that I have never
stopped to apply its general principles to myself."

"You are a sophist," he declared.

"I have not your remarkable insight," she laughed mockingly.

CHAPTER XIII

"How this came about I don't even quite know," Tallente remarked, an
hour or so later, as he laid down the menu and smiled across the corner
table in the little Soho restaurant at his two companions.

"I can tell you exactly," Nora declared. "You are in town for a few
days only, and I want to see as much of you as I can; Susan here is
deserting me at nine o'clock to go to a musical comedy; I particularly
wanted a sole Georges, and I knew, if Susan and I came here alone, a
person whom we neither of us like would come and share our table.
Therefore, I made artless enquiries as to your engagements for the
evening. When I found that you proposed to dine alone in some hidden
place rather th