as a sun-burned brick, with a cascading
moustache of silver, jet-black eyebrows, and eyes which danced defiance
at his gray hairs and wrinkles. Paul could do no less than accept the
hearty hand he offered, and Gertrude set herself to soothe him.

'You know,' she said, laying her finger-tips upon his arm, 'you are a
very inattentive cavalier, Mr. Armstrong. Poor Mrs. Diedrich was taken
ill so suddenly and alarmingly that I had time to do no more than just
to scribble that little hasty note to you. You might at least have
paused to make inquiry.'

'That would never have done,' said Paul 'One does not inquire into a
lady's decision at any moment.'

He spoke with a capital assumption of gaiety, but to the keen instinct
of that experienced trifler with hearts it was an assumption only,
and Gertrude turned the question with the easy skill of a woman of the
world.

'Those geological researches now,' she said, with a charming air of
mocking schoolgirl ignorance about such matters. 'Do you really mean
to tell me that right away in the Himalayas you found the same little
protozoic blot in the same limestone that you find in our own Andes? Has
that little creature really built the mountains of the world? Why, it is
the story of the Coral Islands over again; but on what an enormous scale,
'Dear me, what creatures of a day we are!'

Colonel Brunton, who, as it appeared, was a member of many learned
societies, and a most indefatigable besieger of the world's inaccessible
places, turned out to be a man of so much simplicity, sincerity, and
charm, and Gertrude drew him to his best so skilfully, that it was not
easy to be sulky for a long time together in his society. It was Paul's
cue to disguise himself as far as possible, and this delightful American
helped him greatly. He could barely think of the man as a rival; he was
so very upright, downright complimentary.

'Why, Lord!' he said once in the course of that afternoon's talk, 'when
you were in short frocks, and I was over head and ears in love with
you----'

The Baroness snatched a fan which girdled her, and tapped him with it
reprovingly.

'Well,' he said, twinkling, 'when all is said and done, habit is the
conqueror. I got into that habit when you were a baby: twenty years ago,
I'll swear, though it's not legitimate, I know, to guess a lady's age.
I've found a new habit since--a Satanic habit--of going to and fro about
the earth, and roaming up and down on it, but I ha