arge? Does it contain much?"

"It contains innumerable priceless treasures," returned Braybrooke.

"Innumerable! Dear me!" murmured Fanny Cronin, managing to lift the
dimly painted eyebrows in a distinctively plaintive manner. "Then I dare
say we shall be here for months."

"You don't think," began Braybrooke with exquisite caution, "you don't
think that possibly she may have a more human reason for remaining in
London?"

Fanny Cronin made a rabbit's mouth and looked slightly bemused.

"Human!" she said. "You think Beryl could have a human reason?"

"Oh, surely, surely!"

"But she prefers bronzes to people. I assure you it is so. I have heard
her say that you can never be disappointed by a really good bronze, but
that men and women often distress you by their absurdities and follies."

"That sort of thing is only the outcome of a passing mood of youthful
cynicism."

"Is it? I sometimes think that a born collector, like Beryl, sees more
in bronze and marble than in flesh and blood. She is very sweet, but she
has quite a passion for possessing."

"Is not the greatest possession of all the possession of another's human
heart?" said Braybrooke impressively, and with sentiment.

"I dare say it is, but really I cannot speak from experience," said
Fanny Cronin, with remarkable simplicity.

"Has it never occurred to you," continued Braybrooke, "that your lovely
charge is not likely to remain always Beryl Van Tuyn?"

Miss Cronin looked startled, and slightly moved her ears, a curious
habit which she sometimes indulged in under the influence of sudden
emotion, and which was indicative of mental stress.

"But if Beryl ever marries," she said, "I might have to give up living
in Paris! I might have to go back to America!"

She leaned forward, with her small, plump, and conspicuously freckled
hands grasping the arms of her chair.

"You don't think, Mr. Braybrooke, that Beryl is not here for the Wallace
Collection? You don't think that she is in love with someone in London?"

Francis Braybrooke was decidedly taken aback by this abrupt emotional
outburst. He had not meant to provoke it. Indeed, in his
preoccupation with Craven's affairs and Adela Sellingworth's possible
indiscretions--really he knew of no gentler word to apply to what he
had in mind--he had entirely forgotten that Fanny Cronin's charming
profession of sitting in deep arm-chairs, reposing on luxurious sofas,
and lying in perfect French beds, might, i