g under his young, yellow mustache.

"I am a saint," he declared, with conviction. "A young,
innocent--anchorite."

"Young--yes. You are _very_ young, Mr. Cleeve."

"You called me Teddy this afternoon."

"Then I was a very abandoned person."

"Please be abandoned again. By the way, the colonel expiated many
times at dinner, didn't he?"

She stared. "How?"

"By sitting where he did. Not even opposite side of the table! My
luck, even, was better."

"Your luck? How?"

"Because--I could at least _see_ you!"

Lady Harden was an adept in the gentle art of snubbing.

"My dear child," she said, very gently, pulling off her gloves,
"_don't_ be absurd. I can't bear being made love to by boys!"

"I haven't the slightest intention----" he began, fiercely, but she
had turned, and, opening her violin case, took out what she always
called her fiddle.

She was not a musical artist--so few people are--but she had worked
hard, and knew the things she played.

If there was no Heaven-shaking inspiration about her, there was no
flatting, no slipping from note to note. She played simple,
little-known things, plaintive for the most part, and played them
well.

She also looked her best with fiddle in her arms, a rapt, far-off
expression in her half-closed eyes.

Teddy Cleeve, watching her, hated her for the moment.

And, while he had, in a youthful way, loved several women, this was
the first one he had hated.

He was, however, too young to see the signification of this fact, and
as soon as she had ceased playing, escaped to the smoking room with a
major of hussars, who declared that fiddling was the one thing he
couldn't stand.

"Lovely creature, Lady Harden," the unmusical major began, as he lit
his cigar.

"Too thin," returned Teddy, the crafty.

The major stared. "Are you drunk?" he asked, severely. "Her figger's
the best in England! And amusin'. Tells the best stories of any woman
I know. Only thing I don't like about her is that infernal fiddlin'."

But the fiddling continued, and Teddy, who loved it, felt his hatred
melt. After a bit he went back to the drawing room, only to see the
violin being returned to its case. Lady Harden smiled absently at him,
and soon afterward was settled at a bridge table, opposite Colonel
Durrant.

* * * * *

The next morning Lady Harden went for a ride with a man who had just
arrived--a fellow named Broughton. Cleeve watched them go. Then,
f