the way of coming up
regularly. I fancy that I have rather grown into his way of thinking. I
am quite satisfied--or rather I have been quite satisfied--to live down
there all the year round."

"I have never heard anything so extraordinary in my life!" the woman
declared frankly. "Is it the prince who has induced you to break out of
your seclusion?"

"Our young friend," the prince explained, "finds himself suddenly in
altered circumstances. He has been left a large fortune, and has come to
spend it. Incidentally, I hope, he has come to see something more of
your sex than is possible among his mountain wilds. He has come, in
short, to look a little way into life."

Lady Hilda leaned back in her chair.

"How romantic!"

"The prince amuses himself," John assured her. "I don't suppose I shall
stay very long in London. I want just to try it for a time."

She looked at him almost wistfully. She was a woman with brains; a woman
notorious for the freedom of her life, for her intellectual gifts, for
her almost brutal disregard of the conventions of her class. The
psychological interest of John Strangewey's situation appealed to her
powerfully. Besides, she had a weakness for handsome men.

"Of course, it all sounds like a fairy tale," she declared. "Tell me
exactly, please, how long you have been in London."

"About forty-eight hours," he answered.

"And what did you do last night?"

"I dined with two friends, we went to the Palace, and one of them took
me to a supper club."

She made a little grimace.

"You began in somewhat obvious fashion," she remarked.

"I can vouch for the friends," the prince observed, smiling.

"At any rate," said Lady Hilda, "I am glad to think that I shall be able
to watch you when you see Calavera dance for the first time."

The curtain rang up upon one of the most gorgeous and sensuous of the
Russian ballets. John, who by their joint insistence was occupying the
front chair in the box, leaned forward in his place, his eyes
steadfastly fixed upon the stage. Both the prince and Lady Hilda, in the
background, although they occasionally glanced at the performance,
devoted most of their attention to watching him.

As the story progressed and the music grew in passion and
voluptuousness, they distinctly saw his almost militant protest. They
saw the knitting of his firm mouth and the slight contraction of his
eyebrows. The prince and his friend exchanged glances. She drew her
chair a lit