must be nothing but jam for those ladies and gentlemen that have made
their mark in the Profession."

"Yes?"

Lynette's golden eyes smile back into the laughing brown ones with
pleasant friendliness, combined with an irritating lack of comprehension.
And Red Umbrella, who derives a considerable income from percentages upon
the sale of her photographs, and is conscious that her celebrated features
are figuring upon several of the postcards that hang up for sale in the
window of the only stationer in Herion, is a little nettled.

"I refer to the stage, of course." She fingers a long neck-chain of
sapphires, and tinkles her innumerable bangles with their load of jingling
charms. "But perhaps you're not a Londoner? Or you don't patronise the
theatre?"

"Oh yes. We have a house in Harley Street. And I am very fond of the
Opera," says Lynette, smiling still, "and of seeing plays too; and I often
go to the theatre with Lord and Lady Castleclare, or Major Wrynche and
Lady Hannah, when my husband is too much engaged to take me. One of the
last pieces we saw before we left town was 'The Chiffon Girl' at The
Variety," she adds.

"Indeed! And how did you like 'The Chiffon Girl'?" asks the lady of the
red umbrella, with a gracious and encouraging smile. Unconscious tribute
rendered to one's beauty and one's genius is ever well worth the having.
And the editor of the _Keyhole_, a certain weekly journal of caterings for
the curious, will gladly publish any little anecdote which will serve the
dual purpose of amusing his readers and keeping the name of Miss Lessie
Lavigne before the public eye. "How did you enjoy the performance of the
lady who played the part?"

Lynette ponders, and her fine brows knit. Vexed and indignant, Red
Umbrella, scanning the thoughtful face, admits its youth, its
high-breeding, its delicate, chiselled beauty, and the slender grace of
the supple figure in the grey-blue serge skirt and white silk blouse; nor
is she slow to appreciate the value of the diamond keeper on the slight,
fine, ungloved hand that rests upon the sun-hot moss between them.

"I think I felt rather sorry for her," says the soft cultured voice with
the exquisite, precise inflections. The golden eyes look dreamily out over
the undulating sand-dunes beyond the crisp line of foam to the silken
shimmer of the smoothing water. The little wind has fallen. It is very
still. The nurse, sitting on a hillock of bents in dutiful nearness to the