s lunching on the terrace of Ciro's restaurant with her
brother. She was small, dark, vivacious. Her friends, of whom she had
thousands, all called her Flossie, and she was probably the most popular
American woman who had ever married into the English peerage. Her
brother, Richard Lane, on the other hand, was tall, very
broad-shouldered, with a strong, clean-shaven face, inclined by
disposition to be taciturn. On this particular morning he had less even
than usual to say, and although Lady Weybourne, who was a great
chatterbox, was content as a rule to do most of the talking for herself,
his inattention became at last a little too obvious. He glanced up
eagerly as every newcomer appeared, and his answers to his sister's
criticisms were sometimes almost at random.

"Dicky, I'm not at all sure that I'm liking you this morning," she
observed finally, looking across at him with a critically questioning
smile. "A certain amount of non-responsiveness to my advances I can put
up with--from a brother--but this morning you are positively
inattentive. Tell me your troubles at once. Has Harris been bothering
you, or did you lose a lot of money last night?"

Considering that the young man's income was derived from an exceedingly
well-invested capital of nine million dollars, and that Harris was the
all too perfect captain of his yacht lying then in the harbour, whose
worst complaint was that he had never enough work to do, Lady
Weybourne's enquiries might have been considered as merely tentative.
Richard shook his head a little gloomily.

"Those things aren't likely to trouble me," he remarked. "Harris is all
right, and I've promised him we'll make up a little party and go over to
Cannes in a day or two."

"What a ripping idea!" Lady Weybourne declared, breaking up her thin
toast between her fingers. "I'd love it, and so would Harry. We could
easily get together a delightful party. The Pelhams are here and simply
dying for a change, and there's Captain Gardner and Frank Clowes, and
lots of nice girls. Couldn't we fix a date, Dick?"

"Not just yet," her brother replied.

"And why not?"

"I am waiting," he told her, "until I can ask the girl I want to go."

"And why can't you now?" she demanded, with upraised eyebrows. "I'll be
hostess and chaperone all in one."

"I can't ask her because I don't know her yet," the young man explained
doggedly.

Lady Weybourne leaned back in her chair and laughed.

"So that's it!" she ex