the occasion in question, after chatting for about an hour, he
happened to mention Lady Sellingworth--"Adela Sellingworth," as he
called her. Craven did not know her, and said so in the simplest way.

"I don't know Lady Sellingworth."

Braybrooke sat for a moment in silence looking at Craven over his
carefully trimmed grey and brown beard.

"How very strange!" he said at last.

"Why is it strange?"

"All these years in London and not know Adela Sellingworth!"

"I know about her, of course. I know she was a famous beauty when King
Edward was Prince of Wales, and was tremendously prominent in society
after he came to the throne. But I have never seen her about since I
have been settled in London. To tell the honest truth, I thought Lady
Sellingworth was what is called a back number."

"Adela Sellingworth a back number!"

Braybrooke bristled gently and caught his beard-point with his
broad-fingered right hand. His small, observant hazel eyes rebuked
Craven mildly, and he slightly shook his head, covered with thick,
crinkly and carefully brushed hair.

"Well--but," Craven protested. "But surely she long ago retired from the
fray! Isn't she over sixty?"

"She is about sixty. But that is nothing nowadays."

"No doubt she had a terrific career."

"Terrific! What do you mean exactly by terrific?"

"Why, that she was what used to be called a professional beauty, a
social ruler, immensely distinguished and smart and all that sort of
thing. But I understood that she suddenly gave it all up. I remember
someone telling me that she abdicated, and that those who knew her best
were most surprised about it."

"A woman told you that, no doubt."

"Yes, I think it was a woman."

"Anything else?"

"If I remember rightly, she said that Lady Sellingworth was the very
last woman one had expected to do such a thing, that she was one of the
old guard, whose motto is 'never give up,' that she went on expecting,
and tacitly demanding, the love and admiration which most men only give
with sincerity to young women long after she was no more young and had
begun to lose her looks. Perhaps it was all lies."

"No, no. There is something in it."

He looked meditative.

"It certainly was a sudden business," he presently added. "I have often
thought so. It came about after her return from Paris some ten years
ago--that time when her jewels were stolen."

"Were they?" said Craven.

"Were they!"

Braybrooke's tone just then rea