lder brother, the heir, Viscount Bowen, who would
succeed to the title as the eighth Marquess of Meyfield. Bowen was
five years older than his sister, who had just passed her twenty-third
birthday and, as a frail sensitive child, she had instinctively looked
to him for protection against her elder brother.

Their comradeship was that of mutual understanding. For one to say to
the other, "Don't fail me," meant that any engagement, however
pressing, would be put off. There was a tacit acknowledgment that
their comradeship stood before all else. Each to the other was unique.
Thus when Bowen sent the message to Lady Tanagra through Peel asking
her not to fail him, he knew that she would keep the appointment. He
knew equally well that it would involve her in the breaking of some
other engagement, for there were few girls in London so popular as Lady
Tanagra Bowen.

Whenever there was an important social function, Lady Tanagra Bowen was
sure to be there, and it was equally certain that the photographers of
the illustrated and society papers would so manoeuvre that she came
into the particular group, or groups, they were taking.

The seventh Marquess of Meyfield was an enthusiastic collector of
Tanagra figurines and, overruling his lady's protestations, he had
determined to call his first and only daughter Tanagra. Lady Meyfield
had begged for a second name; but the Marquess had been resolute.
"Tanagra I will have her christened and Tanagra I will have her
called," he had said with a smile that, if it mitigated the sternness
of his expression, did not in my way undermine his determination. Lady
Meyfield knew her lord, and also that her only chance of ruling him was
by showing unfailing tact. She therefore bowed to his decision.

"Poor child!" she had remarked as she looked down at the frail little
mite in the hollow of her arm, "you're certainly going to be made
ridiculous; but I've done my best," and Lord Meyfield had come across
the room and kissed his wife with the remark, "There you're wrong, my
dear, it's going to help to make her a great success. Imagine, the
Lady Tanagra Bowen; why it would make a celebrity of the most
commonplace female," whereat they had both smiled.

As a child Lady Tanagra had been teased unmercifully about her name, so
much so that she had almost hated it; but later when she had come to
love the figurines that were so much part of her father's life, she had
learned, not only to respec