further end. The girl
she immediately recognized.

"Oh--there's Beryl!" she said.

Her heart sank as she looked at Craven.

"Yes," he said.

"Did she see me?"

"I don't know. Probably she did. But she seemed in a hurry."

"Oh! Whom is she with?"

"That fellow they are all talking about, Arabian. At least, I suppose
so. Anyhow, it's the fellow I saw in Glebe Place. Ah, there they go with
_Sole mio_!"

The musicians were beginning the melody of which Italians never seem to
weary. Lady Sellingworth listened to it as she looked down the long and
narrow room now crowded with people. Beryl Van Tuyn was standing by a
table near the wall. Lady Sellingworth saw her in profile. Her companion
stood beside her with his back to the room. Lady Sellingworth noticed
that he was tall with an athletic figure, that he was broad-shouldered,
that his head was covered with thickly growing brown hair. He gave her
the impression of a strong and good-looking man. She gazed at him with
an interest she scarcely understood at that moment, an interest surely
more intense than even the gossip she had heard about him warranted.

He helped Miss Van Tuyn out of her coat, then took off his, and went to
hang them on a stand against the wall. In doing this he turned, and for
a moment showed his profile to Lady Sellingworth. She saw the line of
his brown face, his arm raised, his head slightly thrown back.

So that was Nicolas Arabian, the man all the women in the Coombe set
were gossiping about! She could not see him very well. He was rather
a long way off, and two moving people, a waitress carrying food, an
Italian man going to speak to a gesticulating friend, intervened and
shut him out from her sight while he was still arranging the coats. But
there was something in his profile, something in his movement and in
the carriage of his head which seemed familiar to her. And she drew her
brows together, wondering. Craven spoke to her through the music. She
looked at him, answered him. Then once more she glanced down the room.
Beryl and Arabian had sat down. Beryl was facing her. Arabian was at the
side. Lady Sellingworth still saw him in profile. He was talking to the
waitress.

"I am sure I know that man's face!" Lady Sellingworth thought.

And she expressed her thought to Craven.

"If that is Nicolas Arabian I think I must have seen him about London,"
she said. "His side face seems familiar to me somehow."

Why would not Beryl look at he