at the baptism of the
infants will take place, in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, and
that His Majesty the King will be one of the sponsors. Until this happy
event, the next heir to the title and the immense estates that go with
it was the Honourable Nigel Armine, who recently married the well-known
Mrs. Chepstow, and who is ten years younger than Lord Harwich."

Somehow, now that she saw the fact stated in print, Mrs. Armine felt
suddenly more conscious both of the triumph of Lady Harwich and of the
Harwich, which was the social, faction generally, and of what seemed her
own defeat. What a comfortable smile there must be just now upon the
lips of the smart world, upon the lips of numbers of women not a bit
better than she was! And Nigel had "let her in" for it all. Her lips
tightened ominously as she remembered the cool American eyes of Lady
Harwich, which had often glanced at her with the knowing contempt of the
lively but innocent woman, which stirs the devil in women who are not
innocent, and who are known not to be innocent.

She put down the paper; she went to the window and looked out. From the
garden there rose to her nostrils the delicate scent of some hidden
flower that gave its best gift to the darkness. In the distance, to her
right, there was a pattern of coloured fire relieved against the
dimness, that was not blackness, of the world. That was Baroudi's
dahabeeyah.

Women were smiling in London, were rejoicing in her misfortune. As she
looked at the lines of lamps, they seemed to her lines of satirical
eyes, then, presently, lines of eyes that were watching her and were
reading the truth of her nature.

She called Marie, and again she changed her gown.

While she was doing so, Nigel came up once more, taking Baroudi to a
bedroom, and presently tried the door between her bedroom and his.

"Can't come in!" she called out, lightly.

"You're not changing your dress?"

"I couldn't dine in linen."

"But we are both--"

"Men--and I'm a woman, and I can't dine in linen. I should feel like a
sheet or a pillow-case. Run away, Nigel!"

She heard him washing his hands, and presently she heard him go away.
She knew very well that the lightness in her voice had whipped him, and
that he was "feeling badly."

When the small gong sounded for dinner, she went downstairs, dressed in
a pale yellow gown with a high bodice in which a bunch of purple flowers
was fastened. She wore no jewels and no ornament