ion that failed of its intent, for Grace
said steadily:

"Not handsome in the common acceptance of the term, perhaps, but the
manliest man I have ever seen."

"And you have seen so many," murmured the other comprehensively. "He
interests me more than ever. Is he irrevocably lost to me?"

"That," said Grace truthfully, "I cannot say. It's a small world, you
know, and strange things come to pass." She gave a little retrospective
pat to the head of Buffo, lying in her lap. "And some beautiful things
pass for ever." The antelope licked her cheek sympathetically as the
last sentence was breathed softly in his ear. Constance Brevoort,
unhearing that last piteous cry, smiled confidently.

"It will come to pass, without question. And then--who knows."

Carter entering at this juncture, the conversation was diverted to other
topics. Later that night as Mrs. Brevoort divested herself of the
surface paraphernalia of the sex, she smiled approvingly at the
revelations of the long cheval mirror in her dressing-room.

She was a handsome young matron of thirty, a perfect specimen of the
southern type of brunette, with black eyes and hair, and creamy skin.
Married at eighteen to Anselm Brevoort, a millionaire thirty years her
senior, she had lived the life of luxury and dissipation inseparable
from her social station, and was therefore naturally blase and a bit
enervated. Yet, as she stood there in the soft candle light, uncoiling
her luxuriant masses of hair, it was evident that excesses had left no
traces on her splendid physique.

Her marriage had been one of convenience purely; she had from the very
beginning frankly disavowed any love for the man who made her the
mistress of his establishment and the custodian of his honor, and the
waning years had not brought any accession of the tender passion.
Brevoort was a very unemotional man at the best and was wholly engrossed
in his business affairs, living for the better part of his time at the
clubs or abroad. She was therefore thrown a great deal on her own
resources for amusement, and it must be admitted that she made the most
of the many opportunities accorded to every beautiful woman in her
sphere. Her natural pride and discriminativeness had served her among
temptations that would have been disastrous to a weaker nature.

So it was that at the end of her "dolorous dozen" as she whimsically
called her years of marital anomaly, she had run the gamut of every
danger incident t