ad admitted him. It sent Maisie up very much in his
estimation. It almost explained to him how she had managed to get three
husbands. Men never know why they fall in love with a woman; more often
than not they mistake tidiness for beauty. "If you can't be beautiful,
be clean," Maisie's hall seemed to say; "if you can be both, you're
invincible." Maisie was invincible, as her conquests proved. This first
glimpse of her belongings showed that she loved cleanliness. By a jump
in his logic Tabs began to suspect that she must be beautiful.

He had pursued his observations thus far, when he heard a door
discreetly closed overhead and the starchy rustling of the maid
returning.

"If your Lordship will step into the drawing-room, Madam will be down in
a moment."

He found himself in a long artistic room, feminine to a degree,
exquisitely restful and yet broad-minded with signs of selection and
travel. It was furnished according to no particular period. There was
an Italian chest of drawers inlaid with ivory, a Dutch marquetry
secretaire, some Louis XVIth chairs, a mirror of old Venetian glass,
bronzes, snuff-boxes, specimens of china, odd bits of beaten silver,
knick-knacks of all sorts, lying scattered about with apparent
carelessness. A fire was burning in the grate. Tea was set out on a
table beside a companionable couch. Through French windows the smallest
of gardens shone bravely, a-blow with bulb flowers planted in crevices
of a rockery, at the foot of which lay an oval pond and a silent
fountain. As though to emphasize the game of littleness, a toy-boat
floated on the pond's surface.

"Not the woman I had imagined," was his unspoken thought; "not the wily
adventuress! But if she's not, then what----"

In an attempt to satisfy his curiosity, he commenced to inspect the room
in detail. The first thing he discovered was that all the silver frames,
which stood about, contained photographs of the same man. It struck him
as an odd exhibition of faithfulness on the part of a woman who had had
so many husbands. He counted the photographs; there were no less than
five of them, recording the same face from varying angles.

"Which of them, is he," he asked himself, "Pollock, Gervis, or Lockwood?
But he mayn't be any of them. Perhaps he's a possible fourth--the
latest. If so, here's hoping, for he shuts out Adair."

He turned towards the couch, intending to sit down. As he turned, his
gaze encountered an oil-painting hanging