"Oh, you've noticed that, have you? Yes, I take it for my
complexion--like my stepmother."

"That's so, she does drink Evian, doesn't she? She scarcely touches
wine.... How exquisite she is--don't you think? She is one of the
loveliest women I have ever seen."

"I quite agree," he said slowly. "Therese will stand a good deal of
looking at. Exquisite--that's the right word. There is only one thing
about her that isn't exquisite."

"What is that?" she asked him curiously.

"Her hands."

She gave a quick understanding nod.

"I know--I've thought that, too. They don't seem to go with the rest
of her, although she takes such perfect care of them."

"A psychologist chap once told me," he remarked after a thoughtful
pause, "that hands like that--you mustn't misunderstand me, he was only
speaking of the type--were the hands of the successful _cocotte_."

CHAPTER XVII

She was so silent he began to wonder if he had shocked her, though that
didn't seem likely, she was such a sensible girl.

"Of course she can't help having that sort of hand," he hastened to add
apologetically. "It's just a peculiarity."

Esther was repeating to herself that phrase, "the hands of the
successful _cocotte_," which somehow seemed oddly illuminating. Lady
Clifford's hands had a meaning for her now. The soft cushioned palms
spelled love of luxury, the stumpy, curving fingers and talon-like
nails indicated acquisitive greed. She could see them grasping,
grasping...

"Ah, here are the cocktails."

She came to herself with a smile, and took the frosty glass which he
held out to her.

"May we both get what we want!"

She touched her glass to his gaily and drank. Then with a flash of
reminiscence she glanced across at Holliday, recalling the fact that a
few weeks ago he had uttered exactly the same toast. What was it
Holliday wanted? She had thought at the time it was something quite
definite....

The meal proceeded happily, they laughed and chatted with a sense of
exhilaration derived only in part from the champagne. Although they
told each other many things, as on a former occasion, it was not what
they said that mattered. Each was intensely absorbed in the other's
personality; what counted was mutual attraction, which invested every
commonplace with vibrant inner meanings. They forgot the life about
them; it was as though they were marooned upon a tiny island in the
midst of uncharted seas.

"Do you feel