ted with a smile or a laugh, an expression of
such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing
to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle
of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.

Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but
what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and
apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked
hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all
askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment
almost offensive.

It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his
attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the
wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph
ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to
associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before
him.

"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came
to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon
you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the
strength of the friendship you bear her."

He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.

"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.

"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that
was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly
boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness
added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than
five-and-twenty.

"She is very fond of you," Sir Joseph proceeded earnestly, beginning to
feel, for the first time, not only that Mrs. Delarayne's infatuation was
clearly justified, but also that young St. Maur had probably been right
in his remarks concerning Charles I.'s creations. It was strange to
recognise the evidences of unusual wisdom in such a childish face; it
reminded him vaguely of what he had heard or dreamt of Chinese
mandarins,--evidently such phenomena were possible.

"She's an amazingly captivating woman," muttered Lord Henry, still
pulling at the tuft of hair over his brow. "Her blank refusal to accept
the fact of her advancing years is the most wonderful and at the same
time the most pathetic thing about her."

Sir Joseph, with an expression of deep curiosity, leant heavily over the
right arm of his