yn impulsively.

"You would not have known _me_ then," returned Lady Sellingworth, with
the slightest possible stress on the penultimate word.

Then she changed the conversation. Craven felt that she was not fond of
talking about herself.

CHAPTER III

That day Craven walked away from Lady Sellingworth's house with Miss Van
Tuyn, leaving Sir Seymour Portman behind him.

Miss Van Tuyn was staying with a friend at the Hyde Park Hotel, and, as
she said she wanted some air, Craven offered to accompany her there on
foot.

"Do!" she said in her frank and very conscious way. "I'm afraid of
London on a Sunday."

"Afraid!"

"As I'm afraid of a heavy, dull person with a morose expression. Please
don't be angry."

Craven smiled.

"I know! Paris is much lighter in hand than London on a Sunday."

"Isn't it? But there are people in London! Isn't _she_ a precious
person?"

"Lady Sellingworth?"

"Yes. You have marvellous old women in London who do all that we young
people do, and who look astonishing. They might almost be somewhere in
the thirties when one knows they are really in the sixties. They play
games, ride, can still dance, have perfect digestions, sit up till two
in the morning and are out shopping in Bond Street as fresh as paint
by eleven, having already written dozens of acceptances to invitations,
arranged dinners, theatre parties, heaven knows what! Made of cast iron,
they seem. They even manage somehow to be fairly attractive to young
men. They are living marvels, and I take off my toque to them. But Lady
Sellingworth, quite old, ravaged, devastated by time one might say, who
goes nowhere and who doesn't even play bridge--she beats them all. I
love her. I love her wrinkled distinction, her husky voice, her careless
walk. She walks anyhow, like a woman alone on a country road. She looks
even older than she is. But what does it matter? If I were a man--"

"Would you fall in love with her?" Craven interposed.

"Oh, no!"

She shot a blue glance at him.

"But I should love her--if only she would let me. But she wouldn't. I
feel that."

"I never saw her till to-day. She charmed me."

"Of course. But she didn't try to."

"Probably not."

"That's it! She doesn't try, and that's partly why she succeeds, being
as God has made her. Do you know that some people hate her?"

"Impossible!"

"They do."

"Who do?"

"The young-old women of her time, the young-old Edwardian women. She
dates them. S