morrow. I shan't be in, myself."

She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she looked
round with the finished note Fleur was still touching the poppies with
her gloved finger.

June licked a stamp. "Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of
course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky."

Fleur took the note. "Thanks awfully!"

'Cold-blooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her father, to
love, and not to be loved by the daughter of--Soames! It was
humiliating!

"Is that all?"

Fleur nodded; her frills shook and trembled as she swayed toward the
door.

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!... Little piece of fashion!" muttered June, closing the door.
"That family!" And she marched back toward her studio. Boris
Strumolowski had regained his Christ-like silence and Jimmy Portugal was
damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf he ran the
Neo-Artist. Among the condemned were Eric Cobbley, and several other
"lame-duck" genii who at one time or another had held first place in the
repertoire of June's aid and adoration. She experienced a sense of
futility and disgust, and went to the window to let the river-wind blow
those squeaky words away.

But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with Hannah
Hobdey, she sat down and mothered young Strumolowski for half an hour,
promising him a month, at least, of the American stream; so that he went
away with his halo in perfect order. 'In spite of all,' June thought,
'Boris is wonderful'

VIII

THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH

To know that your hand is against every one's is--for some natures--to
experience a sense of moral release. Fleur felt no remorse when she left
June's house. Reading condemnatory resentment in her little kinswoman's
blue eyes-she was glad that she had fooled her, despising June because
that elderly idealist had not seen what she was after.

End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only just
beginning. And she smiled to herself on the top of the bus which carried
her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed out by spasms of
anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to manage Jon? She had
taken the bit between her teeth, but could she make him take it too? She
knew the truth and the real danger of delay--he knew neither; therein lay
all the difference in the world.

'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?' This
hideous luck had no