-aged adviser of hot passioned youth, into the steady unselfish
confidante, into the breaker of untoward news to the venerable
parent--in fact, into Mother Hubbard, as Lady Sellingworth more than
once desperately told herself.

"Mother Hubbard! Mother Hubbard! I'm just Mother Hubbard to him and to
that horrible girl!"

And she saw herself as Mother Hubbard, a "dame." And she alone knew
how absolutely bare her cupboard was at that time. But she struggled on
magnificently, taking no rest; she faced the "old guard" with splendid
courage, in fact with such courage that most of them pretended to
be deceived, and perhaps--for is not everything possible in this
life?--perhaps two or three of them really were deceived.

The Duchess of Wellingborough said often at this time: "Addie
Sellingworth has the stuff in her of a leader of forlorn hopes!"

Lord Blyston paid up for "the Crouch," once Willoughby, who had now
left the Alhambra disconsolate. He paid up by selling the only estate
he still possessed, and letting his one remaining country house to an
extraordinarily vulgar manufacturer from the Midlands, who did not
know a Turner from a Velasquez until he was told. And for the time "the
Crouch" was as satisfied as a woman of her type can ever be.

Time passed on. Lady Sellingworth went about everywhere with a smiling
carefully-made-up face and a heart full of dust and ashes.

But even then she could not make up her mind finally to abandon all
pretence of youth, all hope of youth's distractions, pleasures, even
joys. She had a terribly obstinate nature, it seemed, a terribly strong
lust after life.

Even her imp could not lash her into acceptance of the inevitable, could
not drive her with his thongs of irony into the dignity which only comes
when the human being knows how to give up, and when.

But what the imp could not achieve was eventually achieved by a man,
whose name Lady Sellingworth did not know.

This was how it happened.

One day when Lady Sellingworth was walking down Bond Street--it was
in the morning and she was with the Duchess of Wellingborough--an
extraordinarily handsome young man, whom neither of them knew, met them
and passed by. He was tall, brown skinned, with soft, very intelligent
brown eyes, and strong, manly and splendidly cut features. His thick
brown hair was brushed, his little brown moustache was cut, like a
Guardsman's. But he was certainly not a Guardsman. He was not even
an Englishman,