ally are. Remember your folly with Rupert Louth, and
this time try to be wise."
But something else in her, the persistent vanity, perhaps, of a once
very beautiful woman, told her that her attraction was not dead, and
that if she obeyed her imp she would simply be throwing away the chance
of a great joy. Once again her thoughts went to marriage. Once again
she dreamed of a young man falling romantically in love with her, and
of taking him into her life, and of making his life wonderful by her
influence and her connexions.
Once again she was driven by her wildness.
The end of it was that she summoned her maid and told her that they were
going over to Paris for a few days on the following Thursday. The maid
was not surprised. She supposed that my lady wanted some new gowns. She
asked, and was told, what to pack.
Now Lady Sellingworth, as all her friends and many others knew,
possessed an extremely valuable collection of jewels, and seldom, or
never, moved far without taking a part of the collection with her. She
loved jewels, and usually wore them in the evening, and as she was often
seen in public--at the opera and elsewhere--her diamonds, emeralds,
sapphires and pearls had often been admired, and perhaps longed for, by
strangers.
When she went to Paris on this occasion she took a jewel-case with her.
In it there were perhaps fifty thousand pounds' worth of gems. Her
maid, a woman who had been with her for years, was in charge of the
case except when Lady Sellingworth was actually in the train. Then Lady
Sellingworth had it with her in a reserved first-class carriage for the
whole of which she paid.
The journey was not eventful. But to Lady Sellingworth it was an
adventure.
The brown man was on the train with his thin, sardonic friend, and with
the old woman Lady Sellingworth had seen with him in London.
The sight of this party--she saw them stepping into the Pullman car as
she was going to her reserved carriage--surprised her. She had expected
that the stranger would travel alone. As she sat down in her corner
facing the engine, with the jewel-case on the seat next to her, she felt
an obscure irritation. A man in search of adventure does not usually
take two people--one of them an old woman in a black wig--with him when
he sets out on his travels. A trio banishes romance. And how can a woman
be thrilled by a family party?
For a moment Lady Sellingworth felt anger against the stranger. For a
moment s
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