ie, you know as well as I do. I had a bet with Anne that she would
accept. I'm five pounds to the good. Adela is a creature of impulses,
and that sort of creature does young things to the day of its death."

"Is it doing a young thing to accept a luncheon invitation from you?"

"Yes--for _her_ reason."

"Well, that's beyond me."

"How indifferent you are!"

He looked at her in silence.

Lady Sellingworth talked to the baron till half-way through lunch.
He was a financier of rather obscure origin, long naturalized as an
Englishman, and ardently patriotic. The noble words "we British people"
were often upon his strangely foreign-looking lips. Many years ago
the "old guard" had taken him to their generous bosoms. For he was
enormously rich, and really not a bad sort. And he had been clever
enough to remain unmarried, so hope attended him with undeviating steps.

Miss Van Tuyn was presently the theme of his discourse. Evidently he did
not know anything about her and Alick Craven. For he discussed her and
her change of fortune without embarrassment or any _arriere pensee_,
and he, too, spoke of the visit to Rose Tree Gardens. Evidently all the
Coombe set was full of this mysterious visit, paid to an Adonis whom
nobody knew, in the shadow of a father's death.

The baron greatly admired Miss Van Tuyn, not only for her beauty but for
her daring. And he was not at all shocked at what she had done.

"She never lived with her father. Why should she pretend to be upset at
his death? The only difference it makes to her is an extremely agreeable
one. If she celebrates it by a mild revel over the tea cups with an
exceptionally good-looking man, who is to blame her? The fact is, we
Britishers are all moral humbugs. It seems to be in the blood," etc.

He ran on with wholly un-English vivacity about Beryl and her wonderful
man. Everybody wished to know who he was and all about him, but he
seemed to be a profound mystery. Even Minnie Birchington, who lived
opposite to him, knew little more than the rest of them. Since she had
been introduced to him she had never set eyes on him, although she
knew from her maid that he was still in the flat opposite, which he had
rented furnished for three months with an option for a longer period. He
had a Spanish manservant in the flat with him, but whether he, too, was
Spanish Mrs. Birchington did not know. Where had Beryl Van Tuyn picked
him up, and how had she come to know him so well? All t