Mrs. Cutting had bought, several years since, the lease of one of the great houses in Grosvenor Square from a bachelor who, late in life, had inherited it among other properties, and had lived comfortably at his club too long to move or to think favorably of matrimony. At his tenant’s tactful suggestion he reserved the ancestral furniture and pictures, sending them to one of his country houses, and Mrs. Cutting, in refurnishing, had wisely gone to Paris. Knowing the importance of the least of individualizations in a city which resents the unorthodox and is correspondingly fascinated by it, she had, instead of making her mansion the replica of a thousand other fine houses or even of permitting herself to be seduced by æstheticism, that bastard of the Brotherhood, re-created the big heavy rooms into a setting appropriate for a marquise of the eighteenth century. But too wise, or too indifferent, to become the slave of any period, her house was merely light, gay, brilliant, not too full of exquisite furniture gilded and brocaded; there were pastels in very old frames, costly trifles, the whole effect infinitely French. Everybody pronounced the word vaguely upon entering the series of reception rooms, drawing-rooms, and boudoirs, barely noting if the effect were produced by the pale brocades set in the white and gold of the panelled walls, the polished floors, the old but beautiful rugs, or by the numberless details, such as the bluish grey inner blinds, drawn up on either side and in the middle, that one sees in any modern French house. But the effect was there, that bright delicate luxurious setting for two beautiful women as dainty and splendid as ever the aristocracy of France achieved before her people found themselves; and all London approved and went there to be refreshed. Although it was now quite three years since the house had been remodelled and thrown open, the illness and death of her husband, followed by litigation, had called Mrs. Cutting so often from the city of her heart that the season just past was the first she had spent uninterruptedly in London since she had been able to equip herself for conquest. An outsider, lacking the halo of fame, no matter how wealthy, cannot impress herself deeply upon a vast and busy society with no more obvious setting than a house hired from some economical noble. But this past season was a very pleasant memory to Mrs. Cutting, not only on account of her daughter’s unqualified success, but because no American in London could dispute the fact that her house had been the scene of the most superb and perfectly appointed entertainments with which dollars had ever defied sovereigns.

Lady Bridgminster, at once the most exclusive and the most independent of women (her Bohemian protégés belonged to the aristocracies of the art world), had been her sponsor, and she had met at once many great people, ordinarily indifferent to or disapproving of rich Americans, whom she might not have met for years, if ever. She was booked for certain country houses in the autumn and early winter which she had long felt she owed it to her American pride to visit, but, even with her already select acquaintance and social tact, hitherto inaccessible. In consequence, never had two women been such devoted friends from the middle of April until the middle of July as “Lady Pat” and Mrs. Cutting, and society had been considerably amused.

As Ordham was escorted through the immense entrance hall and up to the reception room at the head of the grand staircase, then left where he could command a long vista, he felt as if he had entered an enchanted palace. He had been in many palaces, many fine mansions, but never before where the wise gift of selection had eliminated the haphazard accumulations of the centuries, and appropriated all that was beautiful and artistic in historic houses whose owners could no longer pay their monthly bills. He knew what this wondrous interior meant to countless impoverished families whose ancestors had dazzled France. It was the most complete demonstration of the power of practically unlimited wealth that he had ever witnessed, and he wondered if rich Americans really appreciated their good fortune, or if they took it as a matter of course from the moment they were laid in their golden cradle; he was sure that American royalties, unlike European, would never condescend to use merely gilded cradles.

Down at one end of the long vista he saw Mabel Cutting approaching. He rose, but stood still for a moment, hoping that she had not yet seen him, and curious to discover what his first impression of her would be after these eventful months of separation. Moreover, he felt suddenly nervous.

His only impression at the moment was that the figure moving toward him down the bright formal French rooms, was the most graceful he had ever seen. Styr walked like a goddess. Mabel Cutting had the exquisite unconscious grace of a highly bred young girl, a grace that suggests a complete independence of the gravity of the earth. She walked as lightly as if she had never thought about walking at all; her slender figure had none of the conscious upstanding dignity of maturity; it was almost somnambulistic, an effect in harmony with her dreamy large eyes. She wore a gown and hat of various shades of green, and looked like spring reappearing for a moment to reproach the excesses of summer. And she was far more beautiful than when he had seen her last. Oh, no doubt of that. Beside her trotted LaLa, looking like a gnome.

Ordham stood spellbound before this vision for a moment; then advanced with even more dignity than usual, that she might not detect his tremors. Miss Cutting smiled pleasantly and offered her hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Ordham?” Her voice was light, sweet, cold, undeveloped. “Mother will be down presently and give you a cup of tea. Shall we sit in here? It is not so formal.”

She preceded him into a large room, which assuredly, thought he, must have been lifted bodily from some unfortunate royal chateau; but he was far more interested in the graceful figure before him, in her cool ease of manner. Where was the chatterbox of six months since? As they seated themselves beside the tea-table she politely but a little absently asked him if he was glad to be in England again after so long a sojourn abroad; then, her curiosity apparently satisfied, left the conversation in his keeping. He was searching his mind for a new subject to avert an awkward pause, wondering if the great absent eyes fixed upon him gave heed to his unprecedented exertions, and growing vaguely angry, when Mrs. Cutting came brightly in. She shook him warmly by the hand, and prepared to pour out tea with a smiling alertness that made her daughter appear the more indifferent by contrast. As Mrs. Cutting ran on, indeed, Mabel seemed to withdraw more and more into herself, and even while drinking her tea gave the impression of performing a polite act in which she took no interest. At all events she made no attempt to enter the conversation, which, for a time, was all of Ordham’s examinations and future. Once or twice he sought her eyes in the suddenly remembered fashion of that fortnight in Munich when they flirted behind “Momma’s” back; but in vain. Mrs. Cutting was no longer Momma and Mabel was no longer Mabel. What was she? Being a mere man, it was incomprehensible to him that even a London season and many admirers, to say nothing of tutors and books, could transform a beautiful but decidedly commonplace child into a wondrous creature with the poise of her mother, the mystery of those maidens the poets invoke from cloudland, and the intellectual abstraction of a budding genius. She was so perfectfully beautiful, so provocative in her abstraction, that he was at first merely interested. But at the end of half an hour, when she had not addressed a remark to him, but had sat as if she were in front of a camera, he began to grow really angry. He was not accustomed to disdain. He was quite aware that if not yet the head of his family, he was more than a match for any American girl, and had received something more than encouragement from the young lady’s mamma. Moreover, and here he sat up suddenly and began talking with animation to Mrs. Cutting, was he not the intimate friend of one of the greatest women in the world? For the first time he felt the flattery of the haughty Styr’s selection, and in the present engagement it gave him a distinct moral advantage that almost visibly uplifted his chest. He had permitted Mrs. Cutting to sustain the conversation before; he now turned to her wholly, and, the talk having drifted to Munich, gave her a brilliant description of Styr’s Isolde, which should at least display to this absurd young person his knowledge of the art which had lured her to London in the heats of August.

“It is the disappointment of my life that I have not seen Styr,” said Mrs. Cutting. “She did not sing while I was in Munich, and I have never been to Bayreuth. To be frank, I care little for Wagner. When one has been brought up on Patti and Nilsson, so to speak,—”

“Mother!”

Ordham turned with a start. Miss Cutting was regarding her mother with eyes sparkling disapproval. She moved them to Ordham, and the access of interest in those profound orbs was unmistakable. “Thank heaven I am not old-fashioned!” Her voice was so sweet, almost plaintive, that even an American mother could not feel snubbed. “What little I have heard of Wagner—almost wholly at orchestral concerts here—makes me long to hear more—all. Perhaps my English teacher infected me with his own enthusiasm. And he, too, has heard the great Styr. Is it true, Mr. Ordham, that you have heard her in all her rôles?”

“Oh, many times.”

“And is she really so great?”

“She is quite the greatest singer and actress in the world.”

“Ah!” Miss Cutting looked him full in the eyes. Her own seemed to say: “How wonderful you are to love and understand such great things, when most men at your age prefer the Halls!” Mrs. Cutting interposed in her cool, smooth, almost aggressively cultivated voice:

“But she, too, has limitations. She could not sing any of the old rôles. I may be old-fashioned, darling, but I assuredly do prefer Lucia, Leonora, Violetta, with their marvellous vocalization, to those declaiming and unmelodious rôles. I sat through Die Walküre once, and it seemed to me that they merely talked interminably in the singing register. It was quite a week before I felt rested.”

“But Die Walküre is full of drama!” Miss Cutting looked at her parent with a soft steadiness of reproach. Ordham had never seen eyes that revealed and concealed so much. Her small curved mouth, pink and half parted over the little white teeth, was as innocent as a baby’s, yet withal had a delightfully sarcastic uplift at the corners. “Dear mother! There is not a moment when one must not be thrilled by the happenings of very strange things indeed, and it was Wagner’s object to ennoble speech; he thought the old trills and roulades—and all—debased it.”

“Yes, darling, but the speeches need not be so long. Think of Fricka scolding Wotan throughout half of an interminable act; and as for that duologue in the last act between Wotan and Brünhilde—well, its mere memory threatens to deprive me of all the patience I possess. But I foresee my fate. I shall have to take you to Munich next winter.”

“A month at least. I must have that before we go to the Riviera. Oh, there is so much in the world to see, to learn! I wish I were thirty, so that I could feel that I had accomplished a little.”

“You have begun,” said Ordham, smiling. His anger and pique had vanished. “But I hope you like England.”

“It is my second home, of course. Mother has brought me here during most of my vacations.” But there was no enthusiasm in her tones, and she added: “I don’t fancy I shall care deeply for any one place until I have seen a great deal of life. My head feels like an empty house full of tiny rooms, all vacant behind staring windows. Well, one grows older every day.”

Ordham looked at that lovely head, with its mass of shining yellow hair, the full luminous brow, the deep dark eyes, the pure polished whiteness of the skin. He could imagine no more delightful task than furnishing those clean empty little rooms. He suddenly felt that he had accumulated a vast amount in his twenty-four years, and that perhaps it was his duty to decorate the interior of that shapely skull. But her eyes wandered from him again as Mrs. Cutting asked him abruptly what he knew of Styr.

“One hears more and more of her every day, over here,” she added. “So many English people have become convinced that it is their duty to admire Wagner, and are making conscientious efforts. They not only go to Bayreuth, but these last two or three years they have taken in Munich on their way to the Riviera or Italy. Some of the artists, too, come back raving over her. No doubt they really understand Wagner. Do you meet her off the stage?”

“Rarely.”

“Is she supposed to be educated?”

“Educated? She is a highly accomplished woman—has furnished all her little rooms, I should think.” He smiled and turned to Mabel, who was feeding the pug.

“Ah! you know her?” Mrs. Cutting’s voice was very smooth. “She is not received?”

“Rather!”

“How interesting! And how odd—that she should be—well, like that—and received. There are stories.” She glanced significantly at the averted head of her young daughter. It was patent that Mabel was not to be permitted to furnish any of her vacant cells in the primal colours.

Ordham lifted his shoulders. “She is a great artist. In Munich that suffices. And now, at least, I fancy that little but her art interests her. Her life is one long act of devotion and sacrifice.”

“Nevertheless,” said Mrs. Cutting, as Mabel, having boxed the ears of LaLa for spilling his cream, was escorting him to the door, “she had better not return to New York.”

Ordham’s eyes, suddenly large and cold, interrogated her.

“It seems that one of the old gossips of the Union Club spent a few days not long since in Munich and recognized Styr as a woman—well, whom every New York man once knew by sight, at least. He always spends the season in London, and now that Styr is becoming famous, it gives him great satisfaction to add his little quota of scandal.”

“It is quite possible that he mistook her for some one else. She looks like one woman off the stage, and another on.” Ordham felt an uncontrollable nervousness in his knees and moved about the room, staring at the soft pastels.

“He saw her both on and off. There is no doubt, I fancy. She was supposed to be dead, lost with a cheap company of players on the Pacific Coast. But he says that no one that had ever seen her could possibly mistake her for any one else, greatly as she has gone off—he says that she was a beautiful tigress when she squandered fortunes in New York. But, as you say, it does not matter in Munich, where, dear souls, they would worship the devil himself if he could sing. And, of course, she meditates no social conquest of London or New York. Levering says that she is very clever!”

“She is quite above thinking of such things.” Then, not wishing to hurt this charming woman’s feelings, he added hastily: “Art is a very exalting as well as exacting mistress. Nothing else seems worth while to so ardent a votary as Frau von Tann. If ever she comes here to sing, I fancy she will be the one to raise the social defences. You know that we too can be indifferent to pasts when they are walled off by fame. If Countess Tann created a furore at Covent Garden, she would be run after by every lion hunter in London. Remember Bernhardt.”

The colour left Mrs. Cutting’s cheek, and an angry light sprang to her eyes. But if prompted to deliver her mind of its disgust for the complaisance of a society in which she found no other fault, she thought better of it and replied calmly:

“Well—Bernhardt is French. One never expects much of people that have not had the advantages of the strict tenets of the Anglo-Saxon race; and when a transgressor is the most famous actress in the world, and has lived her life in Paris, the most feverish of all lives in the most feverish of all cities—well, of course, one not only makes allowances, but looks upon her as such a sheer outsider that one feels justified in paying tribute to her genius—or further satisfying one’s curiosity, whichever it may be. But this Styr—ah! here is the carriage. You will drive with us for an hour in the Park? Of course there will be nobody to look at, but the air will be delightful.”

He sat opposite the graceful voluble mother and the silent beautiful daughter with her eyes full of dreams and the hideous pug on her lap; and not only in the park, but during the drive down to Richmond, where he persuaded them to go for dinner. Once only, as they drove home through the twilight, he held Mabel’s eyes for a full minute. There was none of the old innocent coquetry in them, but they looked as if they were taking his measure and pronouncing him worth while if not heroic.

Styr’s name was not mentioned again, nor for many a day after.

Lady Bridgminster paid her son a visit next morning while he was still in bed and drinking his tea. He was but half awake and pretended to no enthusiasm. But his mother pushed a chair to the bedside and tapped the coverlet with her long fingers. It was patent that for once in her life she was nervous.

“I must speak, Johnny,” she exclaimed. “And as I have several engagements to-day, this is my only opportunity.”

“Where can you have engagements in London at this time of year?”

“I am lunching with Rosamond, and then we visit a flower show, and afterwards attend a committee meeting—one of her charities—”

“So she is in town?”

“It is no more remarkable that she should come to town in this stifling weather for the sake of doing good than that little American should suddenly discover that she must come up for second-rate concerts. It does not strike you as odd, I suppose?”

“If I for a moment believed that Miss Cutting came up to London in August on my account, I should be flattered to death; but as a matter of fact, she quite snubbed me.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“But she did. I can assure you I have felt a walking tragedy ever since.”

“She was probably in a bad temper about something.”

“She looked precisely like an angel.”

“Well, no doubt angels have their moods, and she is a spoilt child of fortune. Two millions sterling, and I cannot pay my dressmaker!”

“You wrote me once that an American daughter-in-law would be sure to pay your bills.”

“So would Rosamond. I do not want American dollars.”

“Am I to understand that Rosamond Hayle has also come up to London in August—”

“She does not know that you are back from the north, poor dear. I lured her up, pretending interest in her charity.” She leaned forward and took her son’s hands in the close grasp of her own. “Johnny,” she said intensely, “promise me that you will not marry this Cutting girl—at least that you will not propose to her until you have tried to like Rosamond. That dear English girl has vastly improved. And perhaps I have done wrong to hurry you. There are other girls growing up that will have a good bit of their own. I can think of three. If you will not consider poor Rosamond, at least promise me that you will not fall headlong into the net of these Americans.”

“Of course.”

“Do you forget that I brought you up?” His mother’s voice rose with her indignation. “At least pay me the compliment of frankness. And you will say ‘Of course’ at the altar instead of ‘I will,’ if you are not on your guard.”

“Well, then, I won’t. Eliminate Rosamond Hayle at once and forever. I am not at all sure that I wish to marry Miss Cutting. Before I met her again yesterday I knew that I should be hard driven indeed to make up my mind to marry a chatterbox. Now, although she has astonishingly improved, I do not know that I even like her. But she fascinates and interests me. I shall certainly see more of her. If I can like her well enough, and she will look at me—of which I am by no means sure—I fancy—I don’t know—it may be that I shall marry her. At least she would do me credit and assist me in my career. She is ideally beautiful, uncommonly clever, she has the grand air, and she has millions. You are asking me to marry a woman with less than half her fortune, whom smart Continental women would laugh at. I’d starve before I married a woman I should have to apologize for. No doubt I shall end by worrying along until Bridg drinks himself to death.”

“I don’t believe he is in any immediate danger—with that physique. And I had a remarkably lucid letter from him this morning. He wants me to try to persuade you to assist him in breaking the entail of Ordham—some rich brewer wants to buy it. Of course you will not?”

“I shan’t even discuss the question.”

Lady Bridgminster rose with an impatient jerk of her shoulders. As she stood there in the dim light, so long and narrow, draped, rather than dressed like ordinary women, she looked extraordinarily distinguished and handsome. Ordham’s æsthetic sense stirred, and he put out his hand and took hers.

“We will pay those bills, somehow,” he said. “I got a thousand from Bridg, and Hines, who has been adding up, finds that I overestimated my indebtedness. I will bring you two hundred this afternoon, and if ever I do marry riches, be sure that you and the boys shall have all you want.”

A dark red tide rose to Lady Bridgminster’s hair. She stooped impulsively and kissed her son. “You are a dear generous boy!” she exclaimed. “And we are all cats! cats! Every one of us.”

And leaving her son puzzled as much by her unusual demonstration as by that cryptic arraignment of her sex, she swept her long draperies out of the room.

Ordham dined that evening in the beautiful house, which, under artificial light, looked more than ever a palace evoked by the stroke of a wand for a fairy princess to dwell in. The princess wore misty robes of white, with green leaves in her hair, her ethereal loveliness rendered almost nebulous by her mother’s substantial gown of black jet, and the five big footmen in dark green plush. The dinner might have been sent over from Bignon’s. Certainly these Americans knew how to spend their money. Their very newness inspired them to aim at effects that never would enter the old indifferent heads of the homogeneous races.

Mabel had almost nothing to say. She made no effort whatever, but Mrs. Cutting, accustomed all her life to lead in conversation, as well as to keep it from flagging, entertained the guest so conscientiously that he hardly had time to feel snubbed by the young beauty. Mrs. Cutting’s talk rarely bored him, for she had a wide range of subjects and never clung too long to any one of them, after the fashion of some Americans, and he at least found time to realize that he could not have stood the same amount of chatter from a miss of one season. Mabel’s new reticence became her, the more particularly as when she did speak it was to the point; and it was more and more apparent that she was not the charming little goose he had thought her in Munich. But he was taken aback, as they left the dining room, to receive a polite good night from the young lady, who floated down the long line of rooms and disappeared.

Mrs. Cutting bit her lip and tapped her fan in manifest annoyance as she led the way to the front drawing-room. “Mabel has a slight headache,” she said apologetically. “She always droops a little in warm weather. She wants to return to the country; but I shall continue to be very frank with you, Mr. Ordham—I am most anxious that you should know one another.”

“It looks as if the less she knows me the better she may like me.” Ordham spoke with some humour; he was piqued but not angry. “However, I shall always be grateful to you for letting me look at her.”

“Ah! You do think my chick a beauty?” There was a little break in Mrs. Cutting’s cultivated voice, but she did not lift her eyes to Ordham’s.

“I have never seen a girl half as beautiful.”

Mrs. Cutting rose and moved about with uncommon restlessness. “Oh, if it could only be!” she cried. “Why not? Why not? I cannot live forever. The few relatives I have live in New York, and Mabel is so thoroughly Europeanized. She must marry. There is no other solution for a dainty helpless creature like that. Some man must take care of her as well as of her fortune. I have set my heart upon it, and I have had very few disappointments in life. I really could not endure the failure of this darling project. And you two should be as mutually attracted as the first man and the first woman. I cannot understand it!”

“I can fancy myself feeling the full force of the attraction if encouraged a bit. But if Miss Cutting will not speak to or look at me—”

“Girls are the eternal enigmas—and the most provoking little beasts that nature ever invented. She was quite mad about you when we left Munich. Now she fancies that no man will ever come up to her ideal—whatever it may be! She has no inordinate social ambitions; titles here and in France have been offered to her. But let us not talk about it. Come and see me. I positively refuse to return to the country and the society of tutors. They can come here. If Mabel droops, she can take a tonic. I could remain in this London I adore, winter and summer, autumn and spring. . . . And who knows? All this indifference, this nonchalance, may be but a ruse to draw you on. No one knows a girl less than her mother. And as to girls in general—there is no end to their nonsense and affectations. Fortunately they outgrow them, or what would become of the race? Do light another cigarette and let us sit on the balcony. I am too old for moonlight and balconies, and shall only inspire you with vain regrets—but never mind. At least it will be pleasant for me, and unselfishness is good for the soul!”

Ordham was somewhat surprised that his mother did not inflict him with Rosamond Hayle at luncheon or dinner, and wondered if she had accepted the two hundred pounds in the nature of a bribe. He was more than grateful to be spared the sight of that high-born heiress’s prominent teeth and leaden hair; but beyond forbearing to thrust the young woman upon him in person, Lady Bridgminster made no effort at self-abnegation. She talked of her Rosamond’s virtues constantly and even hinted that hair could be “touched up.” Bony structure was hopeless, but by an elaborate arrangement of red-brown tresses and large hats, front teeth could be thrown into the background, particularly when assisted by a pink and white complexion; and this, she pledged her word, the healthy English girl now possessed. Nor were her eyes at all bad, and she had eyebrows, which were a distinct advantage when fixing up a plain girl. As for figure—what were dressmakers for? Besides, these lovely æsthetic gowns were invented to make skeletons the fashion.

Ordham acquired a certain adroitness in changing the current of his mother’s thought by introducing the subject of her poverty. This was real enough. Her father grew stingier day by day, and her mother, once the essence of worldliness (she, too, had been a beauty), now compromising with heaven through the expensive medium of royal charities, gave her smaller checks every year. How she lived at all heaven only knew. To be sure she had friends, and, thank God! was invited for Homburg or the Riviera every season, and never got round to the same country houses two years in succession. But all that meant clothes, clothes! Heavens, how things did cost! Sometimes she had wished that the boys were girls, but think what they would have cost in clothes. And girls made slaves of their mothers. As to the boys, they were better off without her and could be kept in the country the year round. Their health was wonderful. If they had ever had even the measles or whooping-cough, she had not heard of it. Mortimer (the family solicitor) paid their bills.

If Lady Bridgminster had a preference for any of her children, for any mortal, indeed, save herself, it was for her oldest son, whom she understood in some things so well, and in others not at all. He was interesting, he never bored her. The other five were fine orthodox straightforward English boys, who were only happy when out of doors or satisfying their mighty appetites. She was a little uncomfortable about her second son, Stanley, now twenty-two, and, no doubt, expecting to be entertained in town occasionally. But until her brilliant eldest brought gold to the coffers Stanley must content himself where he was, and there was plenty of room for him, during his holidays, in the dower house. She ran down to see him occasionally, as well as to Kent, and the boys were immensely flattered; Stanley, in particular, when she honoured Sandhurst, showing her off to his companions with a pride not without its pathos. She would willingly have showered money on them, poor souls, and had the youngest up for the pantomimes; but what could she do?

Ordham went one day to visit his brothers. He was fond of them in the abstract, although after the first half hour he was at a loss for subjects of conversation and wearied of theirs. They were somewhat in awe of their magnificent brother, whom they regarded as the head of the family, Bridgminster being more or less of a myth to them. Ordham upon this occasion felt pride as ever in their fine manly appearance, but when the youngest frankly demanded tips was mortified not to be able to respond generously, and wished that he had not come. To them he stood in the shoes of their indulgent father; moreover, Ordham was one of those unfortunate persons who, while possessing the very special gift of wearing new clothes for the first time as if they had been in his wardrobe for at least two months, yet impressed the beholder as a young man of unlimited income, and on the Continent sent the prices up in every shop he entered. He left the house in Kent so deeply vexed at being obliged to give his brothers silver instead of gold that he was in a frame of mind to call on Rosamond Hayle; but in London he found a note from his mother informing him that she had run down to Brighton for the night with that paragon, and he dismissed all things disagreeable from his mind and spent the evening with the Cuttings.

He had lunched or dined or driven with them every day for a fortnight, always entering the cool exquisite house with a sensation of gratitude, especially now that he spent his mornings in the Foreign Office, for the weather continued hot. And this house, with shades drawn and great bunches of flowers in priceless bowls, always struck him afresh as the most perfect setting possible for the young châtelaine, always drifting about in a pale diaphanous gown; she wore a new one every time he saw her. Mrs. Cutting invariably wore black,—jet, lace, or net,—and he sometimes wondered if she deliberately were making a foil of herself; she was still young enough to take pleasure in colours. This question did not give him pause, however, his mental processes being now wholly engaged with the riddle of his sentiments toward Mabel Cutting. Was he on the edge of love, at last? He had gone so far as to resolve to marry her if she would have him, for wed he must, and never could he hope to find another girl with so much to recommend her. But he was still reluctant to give up his liberty; could he but fall a victim to the grand passion, hesitation would be consumed, and he should count himself the happiest of mortals—that is, if she would accept him. He forced his mind to dwell upon her and angrily reproached himself for being as cold as a fish. That she interested and intrigued him beyond any girl he had ever met was indisputable, and he increasingly longed for talks alone with her, that he might explore the tempting by-paths of that mind and character. But Mrs. Cutting was a stickler for the proprieties and did not believe in exposing young people to the criticism of servants. Occasionally Mabel enlivened and talked rapidly and pleasantly about a new play or a bit of news in the artist or social world, but soon relapsed into her usual dreamy silence and left the burden of the conversation to her mother. Once she deliberately picked up a book and read for an hour; and upon another occasion, when the weather was more than commonly warm, she took a little gold box from her pocket and powdered her nose. This Ordham found quite adorable, and was even fascinated by the independence that prompted her to turn from the conversation that did not interest her to the literature that did.

Mrs. Cutting was ever bright and entertaining, being a passed mistress of the art of small talk, but there were times when Ordham hated the sound of her voice, and was not sure whether his impatience were due to his desire to talk with the daughter, or to the possible fact that Margarethe Styr had spoilt him for the conversation of other women. Although grateful that she was not close enough to divert him from his purpose, he felt the sudden deprivation of her society; the more as her letters were brief and unsatisfactory. She was on her Gastspiel and the weather was very warm; but she promised him long letters upon her return to Munich—that is, unless he delightfully returned, as he had promised. This he now knew he should not do until he was safely married; but he was not the man to give his beloved friend a hint of the matrimonial state of his mind or the fluid condition of his affections. Styr pictured him dutifully dancing attendance upon his mother, who, for reasons, was detained in London.

Once he gently insinuated to Miss Cutting that he should like to read with her during the long afternoons, or at least discuss with her the books that occupied her morning hours. But to these hints she was impervious, and, by way of compensating him, Mrs. Cutting proposed a game of tennis every morning before his duties commenced. To this bait Ordham rose like a famished trout, and it somewhat surprised him that Mabel accepted the suggestion no less eagerly than himself. The three drove out to a court in Chelsea every morning at half-past eight, and he played for an hour or two with a radiant vision in a short skirt, a red jersey, and tumbling yellow hair. Mabel did not play a particularly good game, but her interest was youthful and eager, and her admiration of his so outspoken, when her manners, like her toilette, were in déshabillé, that he wondered if there were no end to the charms of this remarkable girl.

One Saturday morning, while dressing, Ordham received a note from Miss Cutting, which, in phrases as light and graceful as her handwriting, conveyed the information that her mother was in bed with a headache, and that unless dear Lady Bridgminster—who, she feared, no longer liked them—would consent to act as chaperon, their game of tennis must be postponed until Monday. He answered that he knew of nothing that would give his mother more pleasure, but as she always slept until ten he hesitated to awaken her. He was disconsolate, and so forth, and so forth. At eleven, he casually presented himself at the familiar door in Grosvenor Square, and upon being told that Mrs. Cutting was indisposed, entered, as a matter of course, waved the footman aside, and wended his way up to the music room, whence issued the strains of Chopin’s Impromptu in D. He stood in the doorway until the unconscious Mabel had finished, listening critically, for Mabel had always refused to play for him. Ordham had no technical knowledge of music, but he had heard a great deal of it because it appealed powerfully to those tracts in his brain which were not mental; he therefore realized that if Mabel’s performance lacked the subtle appeals that go with the velvet touch and depth of expression, there was no doubt of the correctness and brilliancy of her execution. He was rather gratified than otherwise at this lack of a quality that belonged to the maturer mind, not to innocent girlhood. When she had finished, he went forward, and she rose with a blush, the first with which she had favoured him. She looked startled, almost frightened.

“Mom—mother—” she began.

“You will forgive me? Please do. I really could not put in the whole day alone. If you turn me out, I shall be driven to accept an invitation to the country, and I should hate it. Come and talk to me for a bit.”

His eyes coaxed even more than his voice. She led the way to the front drawing-room and seated herself in a chair beside the open window, her poise quite recovered, and talked to him with her inimitable girlish graciousness about nothing in particular. Her old loquacity was outgrown, it was evident; but with her mother ill and a guest on her hands, courtesy demanded that she should make an effort.

But Ordham was determined to seize this opportunity to explore her mind; he had come for no other purpose. Only for the moment was he content to sit and admire her, although she had never looked more like a lovely French princess; that puzzled one, perhaps, who asked why, since the mob had no bread, they did not eat cake. She wore a white gown with a blue sash and a blue ribbon in her hair. Her repose was extraordinary in so young a girl, but once or twice Ordham fancied he detected a nervous compression of her lips. Her large golden brown eyes, however, from which the dreams had been politely banished, smiled at him with a concentration singularly flattering after his many failures to capture even their wandering attention.

“I wish you would tell me what you read,” he said abruptly; “I have wondered and wondered if you care for any of my favourites.”

“I should never dare to tell you what mine are, for I am sure you would despise them. I happen to know what your favourites are—and I have been permitted to read only a few of the foreign classics—mother does not think I should. But books were made to be read and studied, not to be discussed; don’t you think so? I am reading hard in the hope of one day becoming something more than a butterfly, but I have had so little time! Don’t examine me!”

Ordham thought this enchantingly modest. “Why should not we read together? There is so much I should like to get through, but one needs an incentive in this weather. That would be the strongest!”

An expression singularly like alarm flitted through those radiant orbs, but the explanation came in her cry: “Not yet! Not yet! When you come back to England next time. Then I shall know so much more. How perfectly wonderful of you to have passed those terrible examinations—I don’t mean that it was wonderful for you, although so many fail, but you have so much to distract your mind from study. Where do you expect to go first?”

“Oh, St. Petersburg, Rome, Constantinople.”

“It is like you not to want to go back to Paris or to be sent to Washington. All of those capitals must be so perfectly interesting.”

It was a few moments before he realized that she had deftly led the conversation far from literature and was making him talk about himself. He deliberately returned to his exploitations, for nothing in life now interested him as much as the mind hidden behind that full luminous brow, those unfathomable eyes. He had taken a long drive the night before, thinking of Styr and sharply realizing that life without mental companionship would be insupportable. There had been a return of those half-comprehended mutterings of a deeper companionship still, and the whisper that Styr alone held the key to a locked room in his soul; but he was by no means inclined to force the lock and analyze the contents of that room, being vaguely but uneasily conscious that if he did he should suddenly find himself shot out of his present harbour into stormy seas. He had concluded that if this beautiful and accomplished girl really possessed an intellect that could be cultivated to understand and companion his own, and would marry him, he should be an ingrate to ask more of life.

“Why ‘not yet’? Do you forget that I am only twenty-four? I really know nothing at all. If it were not for the fact that nobody ever forced me to study and I put in a good part of the time reading in the library at Ordham, and again, if I had not happened to be much attracted by the Continental theatre, I should be quite ignorant.”

“Really?” She opened her eyes at this paradoxical jumble in a fashion which suggested the old simile, “saucer.” “You have the reputation of being quite too frightfully clever.”

“I wish I were! It is merely that I am not athletic. All my numerous relations are, and they think that as I am not, I must have contracted the vice of brains. But it is all a mistake. I am sure you could teach me. Let us read Meredith together.”

She looked as if about to cry. “I—I—have been dying to read Meredith,” she faltered; “but mother does not think he is quite proper. She does not approve very much of novels, anyway. I console myself with history and memoirs,—and—and—I—well—”

Her cheeks were stained with a beautiful color. She dropped her long eyelashes, hesitated for a full minute, during which Ordham—why, he could not define—held his breath, then raised her eyes to his with a glance of dazzling, of unmistakable coquetry. Its effect, after her long period of indifference, was electrical, and the remark which followed that direct appeal of youth to youth made him turn white.

“Let us talk about that fortnight in Munich,” she almost whispered. “I was so desperately in love with you, poor little soul; and you—you were not quite indifferent. You might have written me one little letter.”

“I—I—” he stammered. “I banished your memory. It was my only refuge. I should not have learned the little German I did. I should have followed you—”

“I am glad that you did not. I was such a little goose—”

“You were enchanting!”

She shook her head. “But only for two weeks! Otherwise, German or not, you would have followed. Even now, I am afraid you think me stupid; but at least I have learned not to bore people when they can listen to mother. Besides, she does not approve of girls talking very much. But I have thought of ten thousand things I should love to talk to you about. Books? Oh, that is only one. Of course I cannot think of any of them now. That is always the way.”

“You might have given me a glance once in a while to let me know you recognized my existence! I have always been made to feel that I was exclusively your mother’s friend.”

“Well—” She lifted her shoulder in the French manner which expresses many words. Then her eyes discarded coquetry and became sombre. “One hates the idea of being put on exhibition. That was spared me until you came. But of course you know—you would be a fool if you didn’t—that mother is dying to have us marry. That is enough to make a girl hate a man. But now that I can see you don’t care a bit about it, I like you much better.” And she rewarded him with the sweetest smile he had ever seen.

Ordham was cold from head to foot, but he answered steadily: “But I do care about it. I want to marry you very much.”

“Oh!” She pouted until her lips looked so kissable that Ordham flushed darkly. Then she became dignified and reserved once more. It was as if she dropped a veil before all that was still too young in her, and became the maiden of many millions and superior mind. But he saw that she clenched her hands in a fold of her gown to keep them from shaking.

“Are you proposing?” she asked gently.

“Is that the tone you assume when about to refuse a man?”

“I don’t think I ever want to marry.”

“Nor did I until I met you. I hated the thought of it.”

“I don’t mean—I mean that one should love very much to marry. That seems more difficult than learning Chopin or—or—literature! All girls dream of the prince—but he does not seem to come to me.”

“You just told me that you were fond of me once.”

“Oh, at that age! It is quite ten years ago. I like to have you come here—oh, immensely! But love!”

“Then you do not hate me? Sometime I have felt sure that you did.”

“Sometimes I have. As I said—no girl enjoys being thrown at a man’s head. I feared you would think I had a hand in it.”

“I never flattered myself.”

“Then you really are unlike other men.”

“Do you care for any one else?”

“Oh, no. I have an American cousin, Bobby Driscom, who is arriving in a week or so from New York. He and his father are bankers and take care of our affairs. I used to think him handsomer than any god could possibly be, but I have not seen him for two years.”

Ordham experienced such torments of jealousy that he bit his lips and beat a tattoo on the floor with his foot. “Does that mean—Tell me—do you dislike me now that you find I want to marry you? You said that my only charm—”

“Was that you were not in love with me.”

“But I am!”

“I think you only want to marry me—as you put it before. I won’t say a word about my horrid money, because I know perfectly well you would not marry for that alone. But you think I would make a good all-round wife for a diplomat—”

“How can you say such things?”

“I really think I should. And I am positive that you do not love me—yet, at all events. I may not be quite nineteen, but I have had a good many men in love with me, all the same. They began while I was in short frocks and wore my hair in plaits. If I don’t know much about anything else, I am not quite a fool on that subject. Ah, here is luncheon being announced and I cannot ask you to stop. How hateful are all these little convenances that hedge a girl about!” She rose and held out her hand. “But we will play tennis on Monday? Meanwhile do not let us think of such serious things as love and marriage. Youth does not last so very long. When you are thirty and I am twenty-four, come and propose to me again. And please, please do not tell mother that you proposed to me to-day, or I shall not have a happy time. Mother is sweet and dear, but when she sets her mind upon a thing—Will you promise?”

“Of course. But I don’t intend to wait until I am thirty to propose again.”

He was dismissed with a bewildering, tantalizing smile beneath sad, unfathomable eyes, that sent him up the wrong street and caused him nearly to be run down twice by hansom cabs.