g, however, she thought of him indulgently. She was pleased
with his clever stroke in capturing the Saint Desert tapestries, which
General Arlington's sudden bankruptcy, and a fresh gambling scandal of
Hubert's, had compelled their owner to part with. She knew that Raymond
de Chelles had told the dealers he would sell his tapestries to anyone
but Mr. Elmer Moffatt, or a buyer acting for him; and it amused her to
think that, thanks to Elmer's astuteness, they were under her roof after
all, and that Raymond and all his clan were by this time aware of it.
These facts disposed her favourably toward her husband, and deepened the
sense of well-being with which--according to her invariable habit--she
walked up to the mirror above the mantelpiece and studied the image it
reflected.

She was still lost in this pleasing contemplation when her husband
entered, looking stouter and redder than ever, in evening clothes that
were a little too tight. His shirt front was as glossy as his baldness,
and in his buttonhole he wore the red ribbon bestowed on him for waiving
his claim to a Velasquez that was wanted for the Louvre. He carried
a newspaper in his hand, and stood looking about the room with a
complacent eye.

"Well, I guess this is all right," he said, and she answered briefly:
"Don't forget you're to take down Madame de Follerive; and for goodness'
sake don't call her 'Countess.'"

"Why, she is one, ain't she?" he returned good-humouredly.

"I wish you'd put that newspaper away," she continued; his habit of
leaving old newspapers about the drawing-room annoyed her.

"Oh, that reminds me--" instead of obeying her he unfolded the paper.
"I brought it in to show you something. Jim Driscoll's been appointed
Ambassador to England."

"Jim Driscoll--!" She caught up the paper and stared at the paragraph
he pointed to. Jim Driscoll--that pitiful nonentity, with his stout
mistrustful commonplace wife! It seemed extraordinary that the
government should have hunted up such insignificant people. And
immediately she had a great vague vision of the splendours they were
going to--all the banquets and ceremonies and precedences....

"I shouldn't say she'd want to, with so few jewels--" She dropped the
paper and turned to her husband. "If you had a spark of ambition, that's
the kind of thing you'd try for. You could have got it just as easily as
not!"

He laughed and thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes with the
gesture she disl