y newest thing in Paris. Gerald brought it to
me--_Souvenir de Jeunesse_."

Brigit looked at her for a moment, but said nothing.

Lady Kingsmead's unconsciousness was, as it always was when she was in a
good humour, both amusing and disarming. So the two women descended the
dark, panelled staircase in silence, crossed the hall and went into the
drawing-room. A man sat over the fire, his long, white hands held up to
the blaze.

"H'are you, Brigit?"

"How d'you do, Gerald?"

Carron turned without rising, and stared thoughtfully at the girl. He
was a big, bony man who had once been very handsome, and the conquering
air had remained true to him long after the desertion of his beauty.
This, too, "gives to think," and is a warning to all people who have
made their worldly successes solely by force of looks, and these are
many. Carron pulled his moustache and narrowed his tired-looking blue
eyes in a way that had been very fetching fifteen years before.

"You look pretty fit," he observed after a pause, as she gazed absently
over his head at the carvings of the mantelpiece.

"I'm--ripping, thanks," she answered with a bored air.

"You'll have to look out, Tony," he went on, frowning as he caught the
expression in Lady Kingsmead's eyes, "she is confoundly good-looking.
Beauties' daughters ought always to be plain."

Lady Kingsmead flushed angrily, and was about to speak, when her
daughter interrupted in a perfunctory voice: "Oh, don't, Gerald, you
know she loathes being teased. Besides, your praise doesn't in the least
interest me."

His smile was not good to see. "I think, my dear Brigit, that you are
about the handsomest woman I ever saw--that is, the handsomest _dark_
woman; but you look so damned ill-tempered that you will be hideous in
ten years' time."

The girl drew a deep sigh of indifference, and turning, walked slowly
away. She wore a rather shabby frock of tomato-coloured chiffon, and as
she went down the room one of her greatest charms appeared to striking
advantage--the lazy, muscular grace of her movements. She walked like an
American Indian youth of some superior tribe, and every curve of her
body indicated remarkable physical strength and endurance.

Gerald Carron watched her, his face paling, and as Lady Kingsmead
studied him, her own slowly reddened under its mask of paint and powder.
The situation was an old one--a woman, too late reciprocating the
passion which she had toyed with for many year