k whether Mrs. Shelley might come in. At luncheon the
Duchess of Ross had complained that no one would give her a chance of
meeting young Eric Lane; Gerald Deganway had murmured, "One poor martyr
without a lion"; and, as Deganway was incapable of originating anything,
Lady Poynter felt that she was not infringing any copyright in recording
the jest against that day when Eleanor Ross tried to steal any more of
her young men the moment she had put a polish on them and made them
known. . . .

"Angel Marion!" cried Lady Poynter, throwing down her pen so that it
described an inky semi-circle. "The idea of asking!"

She embraced her guest as effusively as she had addressed her. Lady
Poynter was forty-eight years of age, daily increasing in bulk,
masculine in voice, intellectual through vanity and childless by
preference. Her husband was rich, patient, stupid and self-indulgent,
bearing with her literary passions and in self-defence displaying that
care for household comfort which it was Lady Poynter's pride to neglect.
Why, she asked, were men given brains if they made gods of their
bellies? Mrs. Shelley was the widow of a well-known free-lance
journalist, who in his day had brought her into contact with a
sufficient number of authors for her to imitate on austerely simple
lines the symposia of wit and learning which Lady Poynter assembled on
the strength of her own personality and her husband's cellar. There was
a long-standing gentle competition between the two, which they abandoned
in common hostility to Lady Maitland, who excelled them both in the
ruthlessness and speed of her hunting. At the moment, however, Mrs.
Shelley had eclipsed both her rivals by the chance of having known Eric
Lane for ten years; to Lady Maitland he was still "Mr. Eric," to Lady
Poynter "Mr. Lane."

"You don't mind my coming like this, do you?" she asked timidly,
disengaging herself from Lady Poynter's embrace and indicating her
commandant's uniform. "I was at the hospital until eight."

"As if I minded what you wore!" her hostess cried. "In war-time, when we
haven't a moment to turn round . . .! And it isn't as if this were a
party."

Mrs. Shelley walked to a mirror and looked thoughtfully at her
unassertive reflection. Her hair was a dusty brown, her eyes an
unsoftening grey, and her cheeks, which were careworn with exacting,
humble ambition, acted at once as frame and background for a thin nose
and unrelaxing mouth.

"You always say tha