allegiance to Lady Sellingworth. It was
as if a personality enveloped him, held his senses as well as his mind
in a soft and powerful grasp. Not that his senses were irritated to
alertness, or played upon to exasperation. They were merely inhibited
from any activity in connexion with another, however beautiful and
desirable. Lady Sellingworth roused no physical desire in Craven,
although she fascinated him. What she did was just this: she deprived
him of physical desire. Miss Van Tuyn's arrows were shot all in vain
that night. But Craven now acted well, for women's keen eyes were upon
him.

Presently they got up to go to the theatre, leaving the other quartet
behind them, quite willing to be late.

"Moscovitch doesn't come on for some time," said Mrs. Ackroyde. "And we
are only going to see him. The play is nothing extraordinary. Where are
you sitting?"

Braybrooke told her the number of their box.

"We are just opposite to you then," she said.

"Mind you behave prettily, Adela!" said Lady Wrackley.

"I have almost forgotten how to behave in a theatre," she said. "I go
to the play so seldom. You shall give me some hints on conduct, Mr.
Craven."

And she turned and led the way out of the restaurant, nodding to people
here and there whom she knew.

Her big motor was waiting outside, and they all got into it. Braybrooke
and Craven sat on the small front seats, sideways, so that they could
talk to their companions; and they flashed through the busy streets,
coming now and then into the gleam of lamplight and looking vivid, then
gliding on into shadows and becoming vague and almost mysterious. As
they crossed Piccadilly Circus Miss Van Tuyn said:

"What a contrast to our walk that night!"

"This way of travelling?" said Lady Sellingworth.

"Yes. Which do you prefer, the life of Soho and the streets and raw
humanity, or the Rolls-Royce life?"

"Oh, I am far too old, and far too fixed in my habits to make any
drastic change in my way of life," said Lady Sellingworth, looking out
of the window.

"You didn't like your little experience the other night enough to repeat
it?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

As she spoke Craven saw her eyes gazing at him in the shadow. They
looked rather hard and searching, he thought.

"Oh, some day I'll go to the _Bella Napoli_ again with you, Beryl, if
you like."

"Thank you, dearest," said Miss Van Tuyn, rather drily.

And again Craven saw her eyes fixed upon him with a hard, steady