olme
was to be found in her house at all, she was usually to be found on
a Wednesday afternoon. She herself considered that she was at home on
Wednesdays, but this idea of hers was often a mere delusion, especially
when the season had fully set in. There were a thousand things to be
done. She frequently forgot what the day of the week was. Unluckily she
forgot it on the Wednesday succeeding her invitation to Miss Schley.
The American duly turned up in Cadogan Square and was informed that Lady
Holme was not to be seen. She left her card and drove away in her coupe
with a decidedly stony expression upon her white face.

That day it chanced that Lord Holme came in just before his wife
and carelessly glanced over the cards which had been left during the
afternoon. He was struck by the name of Pimpernel. It tickled his
fancy somehow. As he looked at it he grinned. He looked at it again
and vaguely recalled some shreds of the club gossip about Miss Schley's
attractions. When Lady Holme walked quietly into her drawing-room two or
three minutes later he met her with Miss Schley's card in his hand.

"What have you got there, Fritz?" she said.

He gave her the card.

"You never told me you'd run up against her," he remarked.

Lady Holme looked at the card and then, quickly, at her husband.

"Why--do you know Miss Schley?" she asked.

"Not I."

"Well then?"

"Fellows say she's deuced takin'. That's all. And she's got a fetchin'
name--eh? Pimpernel."

He repeated it twice and began to grin once more, and to bend and
straighten his legs in the way which sometimes irritated his wife. Lady
Holme was again looking at the card.

"Surely it isn't Wednesday?" she said.

"Yes, it is. What did you think it was?"

"Tuesday--Monday--I don't know."

"Where'd you meet her?"

"Whom? Miss Schley? At the Carlton. A lunch of Amalia Wolfstein's."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

There was no hesitation before the reply.

"What colour?

"Oh!--not Albino."

Lord Holme stared.

"What d'you mean by that, girlie?"

"That Miss Schley is remarkably fair--fairer than I am."

"Is she as pretty as you?

"You can find out for yourself. I'm going to ask her to
something--presently."

In the last word, in the pause that preceded it, there was the creeping
sound of the reluctance Lady Holme felt in allowing Miss Schley to draw
any closer to her life. Lord Holme did not notice it. He only said:

"Right you are. Pimpernel--I should l