just got rid of a few dinner people, and we are going on to
Carmarthen House presently. Take that easy-chair, please, and, light a
cigarette. Will you have a liqueur? Wolfendon has some old brandy which
every one seems to think wonderful."

"You are very kind, Helene," Mr. Sabin said. "I cannot refuse anything
which you offer in so charming a manner. But I shall not keep you more
than a few minutes."

"We need not leave for an hour," Helene said, "and I am dressed except
for my jewels. Tell me, have you seen Lucille? I am so anxious to know."

"I have seen Lucille this evening," Mr. Sabin answered.

"At Dorset House!"

"Yes."

Helene sat down, smiling.

"Do tell me all about it."

"There is very little to tell," Mr. Sabin answered.

"She is with you--she returns at least!"

Mr. Sabin shook his head.

"No," he answered. "She remains at Dorset House."

Helene was silent. Mr. Sabin smoked pensively a moment or two, and
sipped the liqueur which Camperdown's own servant had just brought him.

"It is very hard, Helene," he said, "to make you altogether understand
the situation, for there are certain phases of it which I cannot discuss
with you at all. I have made my first effort to regain Lucille, and it
has failed. It is not her fault. I need not say that it is not mine. But
the struggle has commenced, and in the end I shall win."

"Lucille herself--" Helene began hesitatingly.

"Lucille is, I firmly believe, as anxious to return to me as I am
anxious to have her," Mr. Sabin said.

Helene threw up her hands.

"It is bewildering," she exclaimed.

"It must seem so to you," Mr. Sabin admitted.

"I wish that Lucille were anywhere else," Helene said. "The Dorset House
set, you know, although they are very smart and very exclusive, have
a somewhat peculiar reputation. Lady Carey, although she is such a
brilliant woman, says and does the most insolent, the most amazing
things, and the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer goes everywhere in Europe by
the name of the Royal libertine. They are powerful enough almost to
dominate society, and we poor people who abide by the conventions are
absolutely nowhere beside them. They think that we are bourgeois because
we have virtue, and prehistoric because we are not decadent."

"The Duke--" Mr. Sabin remarked.

"Oh, the Duke is quite different, of course," Helene admitted. "He is a
fanatical Tory, very stupid, very blind to anything except his beloved
Primrose League. How he c