ice had held a high official appointment
at Hong Kong, was one of the smartest and prettiest young women in
London Society. She was twenty-two, a thorough-going out-of-door girl
who looked slightly older than she really was. Her father had retired
as soon as war was over, and they had come to England. By reason of
her mother being the daughter of the Earl of Carringford, she had
soon found herself a popular figure in a mad, go-ahead post-war set.

She had known Charlie Otley soon after she had left Roedene--long
before they had gone out to Hong Kong--and now they were back they
were lovers in secret.

Charlie, who had been a motor engineer before he "joined up" in the
war and got his D.S.O. and his rank as captain, had done splendidly.
On being demobilized he had returned to his old profession, taking the
managership of a very well-known Bond Street firm.

The directors, finding in Otley a man who knew his business, whose
persuasive powers induced many persons to purchase cars, and whose
fearless tests at Brooklands were paragraphed in the daily newspapers,
treated him most generously and left everything, even many of their
financial affairs, in his hands.

Lady Urquhart was, however, an ambitious woman. She inherited all the
exclusiveness of the Carringfords, and she was actively scheming to
marry Peggy to Cis Eastwood, the heir to the estates of old Lord
Drumone. It was the old story of the ambitious mother. Peggy knew
this, and, smiling within herself, had pledged her love to Charlie.
Hence, with the latitude allowed to a girl nowadays, she went about a
good deal with him in London--to the Embassy, the Grafton, the
Diplomats, and several of the smartest dance-clubs, of which both were
members.

Though Otley was often at her house in Mount Street, and frequently
met Lord Drumone's fair-haired and rather effeminate son there,
Peggy's mother never dreamed they were in love. Both were extremely
careful to conceal it, and in their efforts they had been successful.

The orchestra was at the moment playing that plaintive Hungarian gypsy
air, Bela's _Valse Banffy_, that sweet, weird song of the Tziganes
which one hears everywhere along the Danube from Vienna to Belgrade.

"Look here, Charlie," said the girl, much perturbed at what she had
recognized in his handsome countenance. "Tell me, Old Thing, what's
the matter?"

"Matter--why, nothing!" he replied, laughing. "I was only thinking."
And he looked around upon th