nd had
already secured Mr. Lane for luncheon, the Duchess of Ross had wired:
"Don't know you but must. Have just seen your play. When will you dine?"
and Mrs. Shelley had staked out a claim before any one else had heard of
the man.

"That is really _too_ abominable," she cried. "He made a note of the
time in his book . . . only two days ago. . . . And then he hasn't the
consideration even to telephone."

She counted the numbers and turned angrily, as the door was thrown open.
After pausing on the threshold to see who was present, Lady Barbara
Neave entered the room falteringly and with a suggestion that she was
belatedly repenting a too venturesome effect in dress. The men, she
knew, were only watching her eyes and waiting for the surprised smile of
recognition which always made them feel that they had been missed; but
Mrs. Shelley, she would wager, was privately noting that a dove-coloured
silk dress and a scarlet shawl embroidered with birds in flight made a
white face look ashen; Sonia O'Rane was probably wondering why her maid
did not tell her that a band of black tulle with a red rose at one side
simply emphasized her hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. . . . She moved
listlessly and smiled mysteriously to herself as though unconscious that
every one was silent and watchful; then the surprised smile transfigured
her, she kissed the other women with childlike abandon, leaving the men
to watch and envy.

"Babs, darling, it _is_ sweet of you to come. I've no party for you,"
said Lady Poynter, forgiving the girl's lateness and forgetting her own
discomfiture.

Barbara shook her head and looked round the room with eyes which had
lost their momentary colour, as though the light behind them had been
doused.

"I've forgotten what it's like to meet people and try to talk
intelligently," she laughed with the mirthlessness of physical
exhaustion. "Well, Max! And Johnnie! I'm sorry to be late, Margaret, but
until the last moment I didn't know that I should feel up to coming."

"If _you_'d thrown me over, too----" began Lady Poynter. "Give us some
light, Max. My dear, you're losing all your looks, and that black thing
gives you a face like a sheet of mourning note-paper. You _must_ take
proper care of yourself. And you're nothing but skin and bones."

Barbara smiled again, as listlessly as before.

"Yes. My maid has given notice; I don't do her credit. . . . But I'm a
dull subject of conversation. How's dear Marion been al