od; to see him play polo no longer gave her any thrill. So one
morning at their lunch, on a rare occasion when they chanced to be
alone, she told him so, and asked him practically how much he would take
to let her divorce him.

But Vincent Cricklander was a gentleman, and, what is more, an American
gentleman, which means of a chivalry towards women unknown in other
countries.

"I do not want any of your money, Cis," he said. "I will be quite glad
to go, if it will make you happier. We'll phone T.V. Ryan this afternoon
and let him think out a scheme so that it can be done without a scandal
of any sort. My mother has old-fashioned ideas, and I would hate to pain
the poor dear lady."

It took nearly two years, but the divorce was completed at last, and
Cecilia Cricklander found herself perfectly free and with all the keen
scent of the hunter for the chase dilating her fine nostrils as she
stood upon the deck of the great ocean liner bound for Liverpool.

She was a very beautiful woman and refined in every point, with
exquisite feet and hands, pure, brilliant, fair coloring and a superb
figure, and even a fairly sweet voice. Her education had been a good
deal neglected because she was too spoilt by a doting father to profit
by the instruction he provided for her. She felt this keenly directly
she began to go out into the world, and immediately commenced to remedy
the defect. For her, from the very beginning, life appeared in the light
of a game. Fate was an adversary from whom she meant to win all the
stakes, and it behooved a clever woman not to overlook a single card
that might be of use to her in her play. She was quite aware of her own
limitations, and her own forces and advantages. She knew she was
beautiful and charming; she knew she was kind and generous and extremely
"cute," as her old father said. She knew that literature and art did not
interest her one atom in themselves, that most music bored her, and that
she had a rather imperfect memory; but during her brief visits to
England, when she was making up her mind that this country would be the
field for her next exertions, she had decided that to be beautiful and
charming was not just enough; there were numbers of other Americans who
were both, and they were all one as successful and sought after as the
other. She must be something beyond this--a real Queen. To beauty and
wealth and charm she must add culture as well. She must be able to talk
to the prime mini