te of
all that her words implied. "I'd have done the same if you had been old
and withered. Served me right. I should have thought before I left the
house to telephone for a watchman."

"Ah! Quite so. American men are famous for their gallantry, are they
not? Myself, I have always liked them." The smile rose to her wise
penetrating eyes, and Clavering colored like a schoolboy. Then it faded
and her face looked suddenly rigid. "I wonder," she muttered, then
turned her back abruptly. "You must not forget your cocktail. And
dinner has been announced."

Mr. Dinwiddie made a pretext of sipping his cocktail as the three raised
their glasses simultaneously to their hostess. She had declined to join
them, with a little grimace. "Perhaps in time I may become American
enough to like your strange concoctions, but so far I think cocktails
have a really horrid taste. Shall we go in?"

The Judge offered his arm with the formal gallant air he could assume at
will and the other men followed at a discreet distance: her shimmering
gown had a long tail. Mr. Dinwiddie's eyes seemed to bore into that
graceful swaying back, but he was not the man to discuss his hostess
until he had left her house, and Clavering could only wonder what
conclusions were forming in that avid cynical old brain.

The dining-room, long and narrow, was at the back of the hall and
extended along the entire width of the large house. Like the hall it was
panelled and dark, an imposing room hung with family portraits. A small
table at the end looked like a fairy oasis. It glittered and gleamed and
the flowers were mauve, matching the tall wand-like candles.

"I do hope, Madame Zattiany," said Mr. Osborne, as he took a seat at her
left, "that you won't succumb to the prevailing mania for white, and
paint out this beautiful old walnut. Too many of our houses look
entirely too sanitary. One feels as if he were about to be shown up to a
ward, to be received by a hospital nurse with a warning not to speak too
loud." There was no chill formality in his mien as he bent over his
young and beautiful hostess.

"Ah, you forget this is Countess Zattiany's house," she said, smiling.
"But I will admit that if it were mine I should make few changes. White
was quite _a la mode_ in London long before the war, but, myself, I never
liked it."

Judge Trent sat opposite his hostess at the round table. She had placed
Mr. Dinwiddie and Mr. Osborne on either side