orth and Freynault. We can't go a large
party, the house is so small."

"Why cannot you and I go alone, then?" she asked.

"Oh, I think he would like to see Miss Cora. She is such a charming
girl," and John Derringham looked over to where she sat, still dangling
a pair of blue satin feet from the high chair. And inwardly Mrs.
Cricklander burned.

Cora was a second cousin of her divorced husband, and belonged by birth
to that inner cream of New York society which she hated in her heart.
Never, never again would she be so foolish as to chance crossing swords
with one of her own nation. But aloud she acquiesced blandly and
arranged that they should start at eleven o'clock.

"Perhaps we could persuade him to return to lunch with us?" she
hazarded. "And that would be so nice."

"You must do what you can with him," John Derringham said. "I have
prepared him to find you beautiful--as you are."

"You say lovely things about me behind my back, then?" she laughed. "Now
he will be disappointed!"

"Yes, I admit it was a _betise_--but, being my real thoughts, they
slipped out when I was there to-day. You will have to be extra charming
to substantiate them."

Before Mrs. Cricklander went to bed, she called Arabella Clinker into
her room.

"Arabella," she said, "who was Cheiron?" But she pronounced the "ei" as
an "a," so Miss Clinker replied without any hesitation:

"He was a boatman who carried the souls of the dead over the River Styx,
and to whom they were obliged to pay an obolus--son of Erebus and Nox.
He is represented as an old man with a hideous face and long white beard
and piercing eyes."

"Is there anything else I ought to know about him?" her employer asked,
and Arabella thought for a moment.

"There is the story of Hercules not showing the golden bow. Er--it is a
little complicated and has to do with the superstitions of the
ancients--er--something Egyptian, I think, for the moment--I will look
it up to-morrow. I can't say offhand."

"Thanks, Arabella. Good night."

And it was not until after the party of four had started next morning
that Miss Clinker suddenly thought, with a start: "She may have been
alluding to quite the other Cheiron--the Centaur--and in that case I
have given her some wrong lights!"

CHAPTER XIV

Cora was being more than exasperating, Mrs. Cricklander thought, as they
went through the park. Not content with Lord Freynault, who was plainly
devoted to her, she kept every n