“H AVE you been very bored, Nick?”

The week in London had nearly run its course, and Lady Anne’s eyes begged charmingly for a negative. Nick accorded it with a smile.

“I’m never bored with you, madonna; you know that,” he said. “And hotel life is always more or less amusing. One comes across such queer types. There’s one here this evening has been intriguing me enormously. At a little table by herself—do you see her? A tall, rather gorgeous-looking being—kind of cross between the Queen of Sheba and Lucretia Borgia.”

Lady Anne threw a veiled glance in the direction indicated.

“Yes, she’s a very handsome woman, obviously not English.” Her eyes travelled onwards towards the door. “I wish Blaise and Jean would hurry up,” she added impatiently. “They’re taking an unconscionable time to dress.”

The two latter had come in late from a sight-seeing expedition undertaken on Jean’s behalf, and had only returned to the hotel just as Lady Anne and Nick were preparing to make their way in to dinner.

“For such a deliberate matchmaker, you’re a lot too impatient, madonna,” commented Nick teasingly. “That they should have stayed out together until the very last moment ought to have pleased you immensely.”

Lady Anne made a small grimace.

“So it does—theoretically. Only from a practical and purely material point of view, everything else sinks into insignificance beside the fact that I am literally starving. Oh!”—joyfully catching sight of Jean and Tormarin making their way up the room—“Here they are at last! Collect our waiter, Nick, and let’s begin.”

Neither of the late-comers appeared in the least embarrassed by the tardiness of their arrival, said they responded to tentative enquiries concerning their afternoon’s amusement with a disappointing lack of self-consciousness.

Lady Anne experienced an inward qualm of misgiving. There seemed too calm and tranquil a camaraderie between the two to please her altogether. It was as though the last few days had brought about a silent understanding between them—a wordless compact.

She picked up the menu and assumed an absorption in its contents which she was far from feeling.

“What are we all going to eat?” she asked. “I think we must hurry a little, or we shall be late for the play. Then I shall lose the exquisite thrill of seeing the curtain go up.” Tormarin looked entertained.

“Does it still thrill you, you absurdly youthful person?”

“Of course it does. I always consider that the quality of the thrill produced by the rise of the curtain is the measure of one’s capacity for enjoyment. When it no longer thrills me, I shall know that I am getting old and bored, and that I only go to the theatre to kill time and because everyone else goes.”

Dinner proceeded leisurely in spite of Lady Anne’s admonition that they should hurry, and presently Nick, who had glanced across the room once or twice as though secretly amused, remarked confidentially:

“My Lucretia Borgia lady is taking a quite uncommon interest in someone of our party. I’m afraid I can’t flatter myself that she’s lost her heart to me, as I’ve only observed this development since Jean and Blaise joined us. Blaise, I believe it’s you who have won her devoted—if, probably, somewhat violent—affections.”

“Your Lucretia Borgia lady? Which is she?” enquired Jean.

“You can’t see her, because you are sitting with your back to her,” replied Nick importantly. “And it isn’t manners to screw your head round in a public restaurant—even although the modern reincarnation of an unpleasantly vengeful lady may be sitting just behind you. But if you’ll look into that glass opposite you—a little to the right side of it—you’ll see who I mean. She’s quite unmistakable.”

Jean tilted her head a little and peered slantwise into the mirror which faced her. It was precisely at the same moment that Nick’s “Lucretia Borgia lady” looked up for the second time from her p锚che Melba, and Jean found herself gazing straight into the dense darkness of the eyes of Madame de Varigny.

“Why—why————” she stammered in astonishment. “It is the Comtesse de Varigny!” She turned to Lady Anne, adding explanatorily: “You remember, madonna, I told you about her? She chaperoned me at Montavan, after Glyn had departed.”

The recognition had been mutual. Madame de Varigny had half-risen from her seat and was poised in an attitude of expectancy, smiling and gesturing with expressive hands an invitation to Jean to join her.

“I’ll go across and speak to her,” said Jean. “I can’t imagine what she is doing in London.”

“I suppose you, too, met this rather splendid-looking personage at Montavan?” enquired Nick of his brother, as Jean quitted the table.

Tormarin shook his head.

“I never spoke to her. I saw her once, on the night of a fancy-dress ball at the hotel, arrayed as Cleopatra.”

“She’d look the part all right,” commented Nick. “She gives me the impression of being one of those angel-and-devil-mixed kind of women—the latter flavour preponderating. I should rather feel the desirability of emulating Agag in any dealings I had with her. Good Lord!”—with a lively accession of interest—“Jean’s bringing her over here. By Jove! She really is a beautiful person, isn’t she. Like a sort of Eastern empress.”

“Madame de Varigny wishes to be presented to you, Lady Anne,” said Jean, and proceeded to effect introductions all round.

“I remember seeing you with Mees Peterson at Montavan,” remarked the Countess, as she shook hands with Blaise, her dark eyes resting on him curiously.

“Join us and finish your dinner at our table,” suggested Lady Anne hospitably.

But Madame de Varigny protested volubly that she had already finished her meal, though she would sit and talk with them a little if it was agreeable? It was—quite agreeable. She herself saw to that. No one could be more charming than she when she chose, and on this occasion she elected to make herself about as altogether charming as it is possible for a woman to be, entirely conquering the hearts of Lady Anne and Kick. Her simple, childlike warm-heartedness of manner was in such almost ludicrous contrast to her majestic, dark-browed type of beauty that it took them completely by storm.

“This is only just a flying visit that I pay to England,” she explained artlessly. “It is a great good fortune that I should have chanced to encounter ma ch猫re Mees Peterson.”

“It’s certainly an odd chance brought you to the same hotel,” agreed Kick. .

“Is it not?”—delightedly.

And, from the frank wonder and satisfaction she evinced at the coincidence, no one could possibly have surmised that the sole cause and origin of her “flying visit” was a short paragraph contained in the Morning Post, a copy of which, by her express order, had been delivered daily at Chateau Varigny ever since her return thither from the Swiss Alps. The paragraph referred simply to the arrival at Claridge’s of Lady Anne Brennan, accompanied by her two sons and Miss Jean Peterson.

“And are you making a long stay in London?” enquired Madame de Varigny.

Lady Anne shook her head.

“No. We go back to Staple to-morrow.”

The other’s face fell.

“But how unfortunate! I shall then see nothing of my dear Mees Peterson.”

She seemed so distressed that Lady Anne’s kind heart melted within her, albeit it accorded ill with her plans to increase the number of her party.

“We are going on to the theatre,” she said impulsively. “If you have no other engagement, why not come with us? There will be plenty of room in our box.”

Madame de Varigny professed herself enchanted. Curiously enough, she seemed to have no particular wish to draw Jean into anything in the nature of a private talk, but appeared quite content just to take part in the general conversation, while her eyes rested speculatively now upon Jean, now upon Tormarin, as though they afforded her an abstract interest of some kind.

Even at the theatre, where from her corner seat she was able to envisage the other occupants of the box, she seemed almost as much interested in them as in the play that was being performed on the stage. Once, as Tormarin leaned forward and made some comment to Jean, their two pairs of eyes meeting in a look of mutual understanding of some small joke or other, the quiet watcher smiled contentedly, as though the little byplay satisfied some inner questioning.

With the fall of the curtain at the end of the first act, she turned to Lady Anne, politely enthusiastic.

“But it is a charming play,” she said. “It is no wonder the house is s............