being in plenty of time
to give Miss Schley a "rousin' welcome," that she yielded to his bass
protestations, and had the satisfaction of entering their box at least
seven minutes before the curtain went up. The stalls, of course, were
empty, and as they gradually filled she saw the faces of her friends
looking up at her with an amazement that under other circumstances might
have been amusing, but under these was rather irritating. Mr. Laycock
arrived two minutes after they did, and was immediately engaged in a
roaring conversation by Fritz. He was a man who talked a great deal
without having anything to say, who had always had much success with
women, perhaps because he had always treated them very badly, who
dressed, danced and shot well, and who had never, even for a moment,
really cared for anyone but himself. A common enough type.

Sir Donald appeared next, looking even more ghostly than usual. He sat
down by Lady Holme, a little behind her. He seemed depressed, but the
expression in his pale blue eyes when they first rested upon her made
her thoroughly realise one thing--that it was one of her conquering
nights. His eyes travelled quickly from her face to her throat, to
her gown. She wore no jewels. Sir Donald had a fastidious taste in
beauty--the taste that instinctively rejects excess of any kind. Her
appeal to it had never been so great as to-night. She knew it, and felt
that she had never found Sir Donald so attractive as to-night.

Mr. and Mrs. Ulford came in just as the curtain was going up, and the
introductions had to be gone through with a certain mysterious caution,
and the sitting arrangements made with as little noise as possible. Lady
Holme managed them deftly. Mr. Laycock sat nearest the stage, then Leo
Ulford next to her, on her right. Sir Donald was on her other side,
Mrs. Leo sat in the place of honour, with Lord Holme between her and Sir
Donald. She was intensely pink. Even her gown was of that colour, and
she wore a pink aigrette in her hair, fastened with a diamond ornament.
Her thin, betraying throat was clasped by the large dog-collar she had
worn at Arkell House. She cast swift, bird-like glances, full of a
sort of haggard inquiry, towards Lady Holme as she settled down in
her arm-chair in the corner. Lord Holme looked at her and at her
ear-trumpet, and Lady Holme was glad she had decided not to have
neuralgia. There are little compensations about all women even in the
tiresome moments of t