am bored. I want to talk to you."

He paused at once. Lady Ruth nodded to her friends.

"Mr. Wingrave is going to take me to hear Melba sing," she said. "See
you all again, I suppose, at Hereford House!"

They made slow progress through the crowded rooms. Once or twice
Wingrave fancied that his companion hung a little heavily upon his arm.
She showed no desire to talk. She even answered a remark of his in a
monosyllable. Only when they passed the Marchioness, on the arm of one
of the foreign guests in whose honor the reception was given, she seemed
to shiver a little, and her grasp upon his arm was tightened. Once, in
a block, she was forced to speak to some acquaintances, and during
those few seconds, Wingrave studied her curiously. She was absolutely
colorless, and her strange brilliant eyes seemed to have lost all their
fire. Her gown was black, and the decorations of her hair were black
except for a single diamond. There was something almost spectral about
her appearance. She walked stiffly--for the moment she had lost the
sinuous grace of movement which had been one of her many fascinations.
Her neck and shoulders alone remained, as ever, dazzlingly beautiful.

They reached a quiet corner at last. Lady Ruth sank with a little
gesture of relief into an easy chair. Wingrave stood before her.

"You are tired tonight," he remarked.

"I am always tired," she answered wearily. "I begin to think that I
always shall be."

He said nothing. Lady Ruth closed her eyes for a moment as though from
sheer fatigue. Suddenly she opened them again and looked him full in the
face.

"Who was she?" she asked.

"I do not understand," he replied.

"The child you were with--the ingenue, you know--with the pink cheeks
and the wonderful eyes! Is she from one of the theaters, or a genuine
article?"

"The young lady to whom you refer," he answered, "is the daughter of
an old friend of mine. I am practically her guardian. She is in London
studying painting."

"You are her guardian?" Lady Ruth repeated. "I am sorry for her."

"You need not be," he answered. "I trust that I shall be able to fulfill
my duties in a perfectly satisfactory manner."

"Oh! I have no doubt of it," she answered. "Yet I am sorry for her."

"You are certainly," he remarked, "not in an amiable mood."

"I am in rather a desperate one if that is anything," she said, looking
at him with something of the old light in her tired eyes.

"You made a little err