n."

CHAPTER V

Nigel and Maggie had tea together in the little room which the latter
had used as a boudoir. They were discussing the question of her future
residence there.

"I am afraid," he declared, "that you will have to marry me."

"It would have its advantages," she admitted thoughtfully. "I am really
so fond of you, Nigel. I should be married at St. Mary Abbot's,
Kensington, and have the Annersley children for bridesmaids. Don't you
think I should look sweet in old gold and orange blossoms?"

"Don't tantalise me," he begged.

"We really must decide upon something," she insisted. "I hate giving up
my rooms here, I should hate having my worthy aunt as resident duenna,
and I suppose it would be gloriously improper for us two to go on living
here if I didn't. Are you quite sure that you love me, Nigel?"

"I am not quite so sure as I was this morning," he confessed, holding
out his cup for some more tea. "I met a perfectly adorable girl to-day
at luncheon at the Ritz. Such eyes, Maggie, and the slimmest, most
wonderful figure you ever saw!"

"Who was the cat?" Maggie enquired with asperity.

"She is Russian. Her name is Naida Karetsky. Karschoff introduced me."

Maggie was suddenly serious. There was just a trace of the one
expression he had never before seen in her face--fear--lurking in her
eyes, even asserting itself in her tone.

"Naida Karetsky?" she repeated. "Tell me exactly how you met her?"

"She was lunching with her father and Oscar Immelan. She stopped to
speak to Karschoff and asked him to present me. Afterwards, she invited
us to take coffee in the lounge."

"She went out of her way to make your acquaintance, then?"

"Yes, I suppose she did."

"You know who she is?"

"The daughter of one of the Russian Consuls over here, I understood."

"She is more than that," Maggie declared nervously. "She is the
inspiration of the President himself. She is the most vital force in
Russian politics. She is the woman whom I wanted you to know, to whom I
told you that I wished you to pay attentions. And now that you know her,
I am afraid."

"Where did you meet her?" he asked curiously.

"We were at school together in Paris. She was two years older than I,
but she stayed there until she was twenty. Afterwards we met in
Florence."

Nigel was greatly interested.

"Somehow or other, nothing that you can tell me about her surprises me,"
he admitted. "She has the air of counting for great th