y."

"Well, you see," John explained, as he drew an easy chair up to the fire
for his guest, "my stay in London is only a temporary one, and it hasn't
seemed worth while to settle anywhere."

She stretched out her graceful body in front of the fire and raised her
veil. She was very smartly dressed, as usual. Her white-topped boots and
white silk stockings, which she seemed to have no objection to
displaying, were of the latest vogue. The chinchilla around her neck and
in her little toque was most becoming. She seemed to bring with her an
atmosphere indefinable, in its way, but distinctly attractive. Brisk in
her speech, a little commanding in her manner, she was still essentially
feminine.

John, at her direct invitation, had called upon her once or twice since
their meeting at the opera, and he had found her, from the first, more
attractive than any other society woman of his acquaintance. None the
less, he was a little taken aback at her present visit.

"Exactly why are you here, anyhow?" she demanded. "I feel sure that
Eugene told me the reason which had brought you from your wilds, but I
have forgotten it."

"For one thing," John replied, "I have come because I don't want to
appear prejudiced, and the fact that I had never spent a month in
London, or even a week, seemed a little narrow-minded."

"What's the real attraction?" Lady Hilda asked. "It is a woman, isn't
it?"

"I am very fond of a woman who is in London," John admitted. "Perhaps it
is true that I am here on her account."

Lady Hilda withdrew from her muff a gold cigarette-case and a little box
of matches.

"Order some mixed vermuth with lemon for me, please," she begged. "I
have been shopping, and I hate tea. I don't know why I came to see you.
I suddenly thought of it when I was in Bond Street."

"It was very kind of you," John said. "If I had known that you cared
about seeing me, I would have come to you with pleasure."

"What does it matter?" she answered. "You are thinking, perhaps, that I
risk my reputation in coming to a young man's rooms? Those things do not
count for me. Ever since I was a child I have done exactly as I liked,
and people have shrugged their shoulders and said, 'Ah, well, it is only
Lady Hilda!' I have been six months away from civilization, big-game
shooting, and haven't seen a white woman. It didn't matter, because it
was I. I traveled around the world with a most delightful man who was
writing a book, but it didn't