all, and to the wonderful white-haired
woman, too, with the great diamonds gleaming in her ears.

It really was quite a buoyant dinner, and Braybrooke began to feel more
at ease. He had told them all where they were going afterwards, but had
said nothing about Walter's description of the play. None of them had
seen it, but Craven seemed to know all about it, and said it was an
entertaining study of life behind the scenes at the opera, with a great
singer as protagonist.

"He was drawn, I believe, from a famous baritone."

During a great part of her life Lady Sellingworth had been an ardent
lover of the opera, and she had known many of the leading singers in
Paris and London.

"They always seemed to me to be torn by jealousy," she said, "and often
to suffer from the mania of persecution! Really, they are like a race
apart."

And the conversation turned to jealousy. Braybrooke said he had never
suffered from it, did not know what it was. And they smiled at him, and
told him that then he could have no temperament. Craven declared that
he believed almost the whole human race knew the ugly intimacies of
jealousy in some form or other.

"And yourself?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"I!" he said, and looking up saw Lady Sellingworth's brilliant eyes
fixed on him.

"Do you know them?"

"I have felt jealousy certainly, but never yet as I could feel it."

"What! You are conscious of a great capacity for feeling jealous, a
capacity which has never yet had its full fling?" said the girl.

"Yes," he said.

And his lips were smiling, but there was a serious look in his eyes.

And they discussed the causes of jealousy.

"We shall see it to-night on the stage in its professional form," said
Craven.

"And that is the least forgivable form," said Lady Sellingworth.
"Jealousy which is not bound up with the affections is a cold and
hideous thing. But I cannot understand a love which is incapable of
jealousy. In fact, I don't think I could believe it to be love at all."

This remark, coming from those lips, surprised Braybrooke. For Lady
Sellingworth was not wont to turn any talk in which she took part
upon questions concerned with the heart. He had frequently noticed her
apparent aversion from all topics connected with deep feeling. To-night,
it seemed, this aversion had died out of her.

In answer to the last remark Miss Van Tuyn said:

"Then, dear, you rule out perfect trust in a matter of love, do you? All
the sentimental