but for several
years now she had ceased from going there. She did not care to show her
white hair and lined face in Mrs. Ackroyde's rooms, which were always
thronged with women she knew too well and with men who had ceased from
admiring her. And she was no longer deeply interested in the gossip of a
world in which formerly she had been one of the ruling spirits. She was,
therefore, rather surprised at receiving a note from Mrs. Ackroyde
soon after her return from Geneva urging her to motor to Coombe on the
following Sunday for lunch.

"I suppose there will be the usual crowd," Mrs. Ackroyde wrote. "And
I've asked Alick Craven and two or three who don't often come. What do
you think of Beryl Van Tuyn's transformation into an heiress? I hear
she's come into over three million dollars. I suppose she'll be more
unconventional than ever now. Minnie Birchington met her just after
her father's death, in fact the very day his death was announced in
the papers. She'd just been to tea with a marvellously good-looking
man called something Arabian, who has taken a flat in Rose Tree Gardens
opposite to Minnie's. Evidently this is the newest way of going into
deep mourning."

Lady Sellingworth hesitated for some time before answering this note.
Probably, indeed almost certainly, she would have refused the invitation
but for the last three sentences about Beryl Van Tuyn. She did not want
to see the girl again, for she could not help hating her. She had,
of course, sent a note of sympathy to Claridge's, and had received an
affectionate reply, which she had torn up and burnt after reading it.
But she had not gone to tell her regret at this death to Beryl, and
Beryl had expressed no wish to see her.

In her heart Lady Sellingworth hated humbug, and she knew, of course,
that any pretence of real friendship between Beryl and her would be
humbug in an acute form. She might in the future sometimes have to
pretend, but she was resolved not to rush upon insincerity. If Beryl
sought her out again she would play her part of friend gallantly to
conceal her wounds. But she would certainly not seek out Beryl.

She had not seen Craven since her return to London. In spite of
her anger against him, which was complicated by a feeling of almost
contemptuous disgust, she longed to see him again. Each day, when
she had sat in her drawing-room in the late afternoon and had heard
Murgatroyd's heavy step outside and the opening of the door, her heart