ght for it.

After dinner Aline sent for me, and her message included Somerled, if he
could "spare her a few minutes." He could and did with a good grace. We
went together to the small sitting-room, which looked dull compared with
Mrs. Bal's decorated background, though George Vanneck and I had done
our best, on an Edinburgh Sunday, in the way of roses. Somerled had
forgotten to incarnate his sympathy in flower form, and I read remorse
in his eyes as they fell upon Aline, piteous and prostrate.

Electric light was not permitted, and the room was lit only by a few
green-shaded candles which made the invalid ethereally pale. She
reclined on a sofa and wore her best tea-gown, or whatever women call
those loose classic-looking robes nowadays. It was white, and becoming.
She had built up a wall of cushions, against which she leaned, and her
hair was done in two long plaits under a fetching lace cap which gave
her a Marie Antoinette effect. This hair-arrangement interested me
scientifically, because when I breakfast with Aline in our private
sitting-room at a hotel, she often has her hair hanging down, and it has
never looked so long nor so thick as it did on this occasion. She must
have had some clever way of plumping it out. Her eyes being tender and
inflamed had temporarily lost their beauty, so she had tied over them a
folded lace handkerchief or small scarf.

"You look like a model for a classic figure of Justice," said
Somerled--"all but your smart Paris cap."

"Why, was Justice blind? I thought that was Love," said Maud Vanneck,
gayly airing her ignorance. I couldn't help thinking--nor could
Somerled, I'm sure--that Aline looked more like Love-in-a-mist than
stern Justice; but I feared that he had definitely ceased to regard her
from the love point of view, if ever he'd inclined to it.

Aline, who had heard nothing yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the
story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the
responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but
I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as
possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would not
criticise Barrie's mother.

"I think she admired her daughter," he said quietly, "but being what she
is, and looking no more than twenty-five, what can one expect? Of course
the sister fraud will be found out sooner or later; but the important
thing in Mrs. Bal's mind seems to be that it shall b