e out of her
ken. The autumn was deepening. The first fogs of winter had made a
premature appearance, and the spell of the Wallace Collection was
evidently as strong as ever on Beryl. But was it the Wallace Collection?
Miss Cronin never knew much about what Beryl was doing. Still, she was
a woman and had her instincts, rudimentary though they were. Mr.
Braybrooke must certainly have received his conge. Mrs. Clem Hodson
quite agreed with Miss Cronin on that point. Beryl had probably refused
the poor foolish old man that day at the Ritz when there had been that
unpleasant dispute about the plum cake. But now there was this Mr.
Craven! Miss Cronin had found him once with Beryl in the latter's
sitting-room; she had reason to believe they had played golf together.
The young man was certainly handsome. And then Beryl had seemed quite
altered just lately. Her temper was decidedly uncertain. She was
unusually restless and preoccupied. Twice she had been exceedingly cross
about Bourget. And she looked different, too; even Suzanne Hodson had
noticed it. There was something in her face--"a sort of look," Miss
Cronin called it, with an apt feeling for the choice of words--which was
new and alarming. Mrs. Clem declared that Beryl had the expression of a
woman who was crazy about a man.

"It's the eyes and the cheek-bones that tell the tale, Fanny!" she
had observed. "They can't deceive a woman. Don't talk to me about the
Wallace Collection."

Poor Miss Cronin was very uneasy. The future looked almost as dark as
the London days. As she lay upon the French bed, or reclined upon the
sofa, or sat deep in her arm-chair, she envisaged an awful change, when
the Avenue Henri Martin would know her no more, when she might have to
return to the lair in Philadelphia from which Miss Van Tuyn had summoned
her to take charge of Beryl.

One day, when she was almost brooding over the fire, between five and
six o'clock in the afternoon, the door opened and Beryl appeared. She
had been out since eleven in the morning. But that was nothing new. She
went out very often about half-past ten and scarcely ever came back to
lunch.

"Fanny!" she said. "I want you."

"What is it, dear?" said Miss Cronin, sitting forward a little in her
chair and laying aside her book.

"I've brought back a friend, and I want you to know him. Come into my
sitting-room."

Miss Cronin got up obediently and remembering Mrs. Clem's words, looked
at Beryl's cheek-bones and