uired for Miss Van Tuyn, and was told she was out,
had been out since the morning. Craven was pulling his card-case out of
his pocket when he heard a voice say: "Are there any letters for me?" He
swung round and there stood Miss Van Tuyn quite near him. For an instant
she did not see him, and he had time to note that she looked even
unusually vivid and brilliant. An attendant handed her some letters. She
took them, turned and saw Craven.

"I had just asked for you," he said, taking off his hat.

"Oh! How nice of you!"

Her eyes were shining. He felt a controlled excitement in her. Her face
seemed to be trying to tell something which her mind would not choose to
tell. He wondered what it was, this secret which he divined.

"Come upstairs and we'll have a talk in my sitting-room."

She looked at him narrowly, he thought, as they went together to the
lift. She seemed to have a little less self-possession than usual, even
to be slightly self-conscious and because of that watchful.

When they were in her sitting-room she took off her hat, as if tired,
put it on a table and sat down by the fire.

"I've been out all day," she said.

"Yes? Are you still having painting lessons?"

"That's it--painting lessons. Dick is an extraordinary man."

"You mean Dick Garstin. I don't know him."

"He's absolutely unscrupulous, but a genius. I believe genius always is
unscrupulous. I am sure of it. It cannot be anything else."

"That's a pity."

"I don't know that it is."

"But how does Dick Garstin show his unscrupulousness?"

Miss Van Tuyn looked suddenly wary.

"Oh--in all sorts of ways. He uses people. He looks on people as mere
material. He doesn't care for their feelings. He doesn't care what
happens to them. If he gets out of them what he wants it's enough. After
that they may go to perdition, and he wouldn't stretch out a finger to
save them."

"What a delightful individual!"

"Ah!--you don't understand genius."

Craven felt rather nettled. He cared a good deal for the arts, and had
no wish to be set among the Philistines.

"And--do you?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so. I'm not creative, but I'm very comprehending. Artists
of all kinds feel that instinctively. That's why they come round me in
Paris."

"Yes, you do understand!" he acknowledged, remembering her enthusiasm at
the theatre. "But I think _you_ are unscrupulous, too."

He said it hardily, looking straight at her, and wondering what she had
been do