oung and old. She was apparently telling them a story. They were
all laughing and bending toward her. When she saw Alexander, she rose
quickly and put out her hand. The other men drew back a little to let
him approach.

"Mr. Alexander! I am delighted. Have you been in London long?"

Bartley bowed, somewhat laboriously, over her hand. "Long enough to have
seen you more than once. How fine it all is!"

She laughed as if she were pleased. "I'm glad you think so. I like it.
Won't you join us here?"

"Miss Burgoyne was just telling us about a donkey-boy she had in Galway
last summer," Sir Harry Towne explained as the circle closed up again.
Lord Westmere stroked his long white mustache with his bloodless hand
and looked at Alexander blankly. Hilda was a good story-teller. She was
sitting on the edge of her chair, as if she had alighted there for a
moment only. Her primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheath for her
slender, supple figure, and its delicate color suited her white Irish
skin and brown hair. Whatever she wore, people felt the charm of her
active, girlish body with its slender hips and quick, eager shoulders.
Alexander heard little of the story, but he watched Hilda intently. She
must certainly, he reflected, be thirty, and he was honestly delighted
to see that the years had treated her so indulgently. If her face had
changed at all, it was in a slight hardening of the mouth--still eager
enough to be very disconcerting at times, he felt--and in an added
air of self-possession and self-reliance. She carried her head, too, a
little more resolutely.

When the story was finished, Miss Burgoyne turned pointedly to
Alexander, and the other men drifted away.

"I thought I saw you in MacConnell's box with Mainhall one evening, but
I supposed you had left town before this."

She looked at him frankly and cordially, as if he were indeed merely an
old friend whom she was glad to meet again.

"No, I've been mooning about here."

Hilda laughed gayly. "Mooning! I see you mooning! You must be the
busiest man in the world. Time and success have done well by you, you
know. You're handsomer than ever and you've gained a grand manner."

Alexander blushed and bowed. "Time and success have been good friends to
both of us. Aren't you tremendously pleased with yourself?"

She laughed again and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, so-so. But I want to
hear about you. Several years ago I read such a lot in the papers about
the won