under foot. I swear it is!"

A pause. Then his voice added:

"Since I came in I have refused an invitation to dine out to-night. I
absolutely relied on you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. It was from Miss Van Tuyn, to dine with her at the _Bella
Napoli_."

"I'll come!" said Lady Sellingworth. "Good-bye."

And she put up the receiver.

CHAPTER V

Miss Van Tuyn had not intended to stay long in London when she came over
from Paris. But now she changed her mind. She was pulled at by three
interests--Lady Sellingworth, Craven and the living bronze. A cold hand
had touched her vanity on the night of the dinner in Soho. She had felt
angry with Craven for not coming back to the Cafe Royal, and angrier
still with Lady Sellingworth for keeping him with her. Although she did
not positively know that Craven had spent the last part of the evening
in the drawing-room at Berkeley Square, she felt certain that he had
done so. Probably Lady Sellingworth had pressed him to go in. But
perhaps he had been glad to go, perhaps he had submitted to an influence
which had carried him for the time out of his younger, more beautiful
friend's reach.

Miss Van Tuyn resolved definitely that Craven must at once be added to
the numerous men who were mad about her. So much was due to her vanity.
Besides, she liked Craven, and might grow to like him very much if she
knew him better. She decided to know him better, much better, and wrote
her letter to him. Craven had puzzled a little over the final sentence
of that letter. There were two reasons for its apparently casual
insertion. Miss Van Tuyn wished to whip Craven into alertness by giving
his male vanity a flick. Her other reason was more subtle. Some instinct
seemed to tell her that in the future she might want to use the stranger
as a weapon in connexion with Craven. She did not know how exactly. But
in that sentence of her letter she felt that she was somehow preparing
the ground for incidents which would be brought about by destiny, or
which chance would allow to happen.

That she would some day know "the living bronze" she felt certain. For
she meant to know him. Garstin's brutal comment on him had frightened
her. She did not believe it to be just. Garstin was always brutal in his
comments. And he lived so perpetually among shady, or more than shady,
people that it was difficult for him to believe in the decency of
anybody who was worth knowing. For him the world seemed to be divided
into the