he changed her attitude. This she did
only to move toward them, extending a hand to each, letting Cooley seize
the right and Mellin the left.

Each of them was pleased with what he got, particularly Mellin. "The
left is nearer the heart," he thought.

She led them through the curtains, not withdrawing her hands until they
entered the salon. She might have led them out of her fifth-story window
in that fashion, had she chosen.

"My two wicked boys!" she laughed tenderly. This also pleased both of
them, though each would have preferred to be her only wicked boy--a
preference which, perhaps, had something to do with the later events of
the evening.

"Aha! I know you both; before twenty minute' you will be makin' love to
Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Behol' those two already! An' they are only ole
frien's."

She pointed to Pedlow and Sneyd. The fat man was shouting at a woman in
pink satin, who lounged, half-reclining, among a pile of cushions upon a
divan near the fire; Sneyd gallantly bending over her to kiss her hand.

"It is a very little dinner, you see," continued the hostess, "only
seven, but we shall be seven time' happier."

The seventh person proved to be the Italian, Corni, who had surrendered
his seat in Madame de Vaurigard's victoria to Mellin on the Pincio. He
presently made his appearance followed by a waiter bearing a tray of
glasses filled with a pink liquid, while the Countess led her two wicked
boys across the room to present them to Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Already
Mellin was forming sentences for his next letter to the Cranston
Telegraph: "Lady Mount-Rhyswicke said to me the other evening,
while discussing the foreign policy of Great Britain, in Comtesse de
Vaurigard's salon..." "An English peeress of pronounced literary acumen
has been giving me rather confidentially her opinion of our American
poets..."

The inspiration of these promising fragments was a large, weary-looking
person, with no lack of powdered shoulder above her pink bodice and a
profusion of "undulated" hair of so decided a blond that it might have
been suspected that the decision had lain with the lady herself.

"Howjdo," she said languidly, when Mellin's name was pronounced to her.
"There's a man behind you tryin' to give you something to drink."

"Who was it said these were Martinis?" snorted Pedlow. "They've got
perfumery in 'em."

"Ah, what a bad lion it is!" Madame de Vaurigard lifted both hands in
mock horror. "Roar, lion, roa