s
pay. Lord Burden followed Mrs. Ernstein to Cannes; and Dodo, who never
ceased to want good value for her money, was bitterly dissatisfied with
the unmarried men who remained.

The principal one had at first attracted not only Dodo but every other
woman, with the exception of Mary. He spoke English well, yet appeared
to be equally at home in all socially useful languages. He looked like a
Russian, dressed like a Frenchman, claimed to have estates in Italy,
copper mines in Spain, a shooting in Hungary, and told delightful
anecdotes of his intimate friendship with most existing sovereigns. Not
a king or queen of any standing but--according to him--came often to his
"little place" in this country or that, and addressed him as "Dear
Alfred." His manner, his voice, were so smooth that they oiled the
creaking wheels of life at the villa; and his stories, told at the
table, distracted guests' attention from the skeleton at the feast--a
premature skeleton of a once muscular chicken, or a lamb that had seen
its second childhood. Unfortunately, however, a journalist who knew
everybody and everything in the world was brought in to luncheon by Lord
Dauntrey one day, and recognized the favourite of the household as a
famous Parisian furrier. He had supplied enough sable coat linings for
kings and ermine cloaks for queens to give him food for a lifetime of
authentic anecdotes. His acquaintance with royalties was genuine of its
kind, but it was not of a kind that appealed to the paying guests at
Lady Dauntrey's. Dodo turned a cold shoulder upon him, and for a day or
two gave her attention to the only other man in the house who pluckily
advertised himself as unmarried. He advertised himself also as a
millionaire, and not without reason, though Lord Dauntrey had cleverly
picked him up in the Casino. When he mentioned, however, that he was a
Sydney man, Miss Wardropp ceased to talk at him across the table. This
change of tactics her enemies attributed to fear that he "knew all about
her at home." But she told Mary that he had such slept-on looking ears,
he took away her appetite; and one needed all the appetite one could
muster to worry through a meal at the Bella Vista. Besides, she believed
that he had made his fortune by some awful stuff which kept hair from
decaying or teeth from falling off, and it did one no good to be seen in
the Casino with a creature like that. It was almost better to go about
with a woman, though she did hate