e's white-rose
complexion and of the cessation of Carey's acquaintance with the Holmes.
No one seemed to know exactly why Carey went to the house in Cadogan
Square no more.

"For God's sake give me another drink, Robin, and make it a stiff one."

Pierce poured out the whisky and thought:

"Could it have been that?"

Carey emptied the tumbler and heaved a long sigh.

"When d'you go back to Rome?"

"Beginning of July."

"You'll be there in the dead season."

"I like Rome then. The heat doesn't hurt me and I love the peace.
Antiquity seems to descend upon the city in August, returning to its own
when America is far away."

Carey stared at him hard.

"A rising diplomatist oughtn't to live in the past," he said bluntly.

"I like ruins."

"Unless they're women."

"If I loved a woman I could love her when she became what is called a
ruin."

"If you were an old man who had crumbled gradually with her."

"As a young man, too. I was discussing--or rather flitting about,
dinner-party fashion--that very subject to-night."

"With whom?"

"Viola."

"The deuce! What line did you take?"

"That one loves--if one loves--the kernel, not the shell."

"And she?"

"You know her--the opposite."

"Ah!"

"And you, Carey?"

"I! I think if the shell is a beautiful shell and becomes suddenly
broken it makes a devil of a lot of difference in what most people think
of the kernel."

"It wouldn't to me."

"I think it would."

"You take Viola's side then?"

"And when did I ever do anything else? I'm off."

He got up, nodded good-night, and was gone in a moment. Pierce heard him
singing in a deep voice as he went down the stairs, and smiled with a
faint contempt.

"How odd it is that nobody will believe a man if he's fool enough to
hint at the truth of his true self," he thought. "And Carey--who's so
clever about people!"

CHAPTER III

WHEN the last guest had grimaced at her and left the drawing-room, Lady
Holme stood with her hand on the mantelpiece, facing a tall mirror. She
was alone for the moment. Her husband had accompanied Mrs. Wolfstein
downstairs, and Lady Holme could hear his big, booming voice below,
interrupted now and then by her impudent soprano. She spoke English with
a slight foreign accent which men generally liked and women loathed.
Lady Holme loathed it. But she was not fond of her own sex. She believed
that all women were untrustworthy. She often said that she had never met
a woman