to
ask?"

"I should like to claim the right of friendship."

"Of friendship!" She frowned slightly, peering from beneath the lamp in
an effort to make out his features. Then her eyes cleared and she
smiled. "If you don't mean it, please don't say it. You see, it would
hurt afterwards. And--and I should like to have you for my friend."

[Illustration: "_Mrs. Lockwood, why can't you let Adair alone?_"]

He came over from the fireplace and seated himself beside her. "We've
been almost enemies--just a little afraid of each other. Isn't that so?
It's ever so much more comfortable now; we'll be able to talk more
easily. Tell me honestly, what do you see in Adair?"

"See in him!"

She commenced sipping her coffee. She looked extraordinarily like Terry
used to do years ago, when she was a little lass and had been naughty,
and had come reluctantly to ask pardon. He thought that if he went on
talking he might make it easier for her.

"You'll wonder why I, who never knew you until to-day, should have taken
upon myself to broach this subject."

"I don't wonder," she headed him off. "I know. Terry's my friend. Her
father was determined to send somebody, so she worked things in order
that you might be sent. She thought that you would be the kindest
person."

"She thought that!" Tabs was a little taken back by her assertion; it
seemed to pledge him to kindness before he had learnt whether kindness
was required or deserved. It made him in a sense her partisan, when he
ought to have been impartial.

"I think I can be trusted to be kind," he said; "but you must remember
that I've got to be kind all round. I must be kind to Adair's wife and
to his children. If this goes much further it will spell tragedy for
them."

She shrugged her shoulders and laughed without mirth. "Adair's wife
should have remembered to be kind to herself. If a woman can't keep her
husband, she never deserved to have won him. And Adair--he's the
easiest man to keep in the world; far too easy to be exciting. If she
doesn't lose him to me, she'll lose him to some one else, unless----"
And then she surprised him, "But she won't lose him to me, for I don't
want him."

Tabs sighed with relief and lit himself a cigarette. "Then that's
settled. If you don't want him, the trouble's ended, and I think Sir
Tobias and all of us owe you an apology."

Again she laughed. This time some of her old mischief had come back.
"You go too fast, Lord Taborley. I shouldn