g for it."

"Why do you tell me these horrible things?" murmurs Eleanor. "They are
not conducive to appetite."

"Forgive me, but you started by being morbid, quoting at me in fact,
and you look so distractingly lovely when you are shocked."

"To tell a woman she is lovely is to criticise her openly to her face.
Please do not make such a careful perusal of my expression."

"Unfortunately I am endowed with the critical faculty."

The very intonation of Quinton's voice is a caress.

His eyes seem to reveal, as they gaze on her, their power of insight
and analysis. Their look is appreciation, their sympathy with her
every utterance boundless.

To him she is not only a character study, but a woman to love, to
worship, for a day, an hour.

To her he is an object of fascination, an accomplished man of the
world, one who can make himself utterly irresistible by reason of his
tenderness, chivalry, courtesy, and devotion.

A magnetic attraction rises between them. Eleanor forgets her
surroundings. She only remembers him.

At last her eyes fall on the door, and remain transfixed in that
direction.

Giddy Mounteagle, in a costume of wide black and white stripes and
leopard's skin cloak, followed by her youthful _fiance_, enters the
restaurant.

"Bad luck!" exclaims Eleanor, turning to Carol; "look!"

He re-echoes her deep sigh as Giddy advances.

"I hate her seeing me here with you," Mrs. Roche declares. "She is a
bad enemy, and now that we are hardly on speaking terms I dare not
think what horrible stories she may not spread against me."

"Why not make it up, for the sake of our friendship, Eleanor? She
could often help us to meet, you know."

"Never, after the way she treated me!" declares Mrs. Roche, drawing
herself up as Mrs. Mounteagle approaches.

"Hulloa! _you_ here?" she cries in a rather bantering, insolent tone,
and raising her finely pencilled eyebrows till they are lost to view
under her fringe. She pats Carol playfully on the shoulder, pretending
not to notice the stiffness of Eleanor's bow.

Bertie shakes hands with Mrs. Roche, and they seat themselves at the
next table.

Eleanor turns her back, and becomes deeply interested in what Carol is
telling her. They talk loudly on politics for Giddy's benefit.

"How spiteful she looked," whispers Eleanor at last.

"Oh, I don't know. You see you gave her the cold shoulder a bit."

"Do you think she noticed it?"

"Rather. She is as sharp