ge area for a
possible meeting-place. Your description, Mrs Jefferson, is
tantalising in the extreme to a male mind, but I fail to recognise its
charming original as any personal acquaintance."

"I suppose so," said the little American, discontentedly. "I'm just
dying to know who she is, and therefore no one can tell me. Seems I
shall have to call her `the Mystery,' until she condescends to throw off
this _incognita_ business."

"But we are sure to see her," interposed Orval Molyneux, the young poet.
"She must go out sometimes, I suppose."

"If you'll take my advice," said Mrs Jefferson brusquely, "you won't
try to see her, for it's my belief that she's not the woman any man can
look at and forget, and you poets are mostly impressionable."

"Such a warning is only adding zest to temptation," said Colonel
Estcourt, with a grave smile. "You _really_ have aroused my curiosity
in no small degree. But perhaps the mysterious beauty may not be so
obdurate as you imagined. Why should she not show herself among us? It
is contrary to all known rules of Nature for a beautiful woman to hide
herself from the admiration her charms would exact. When those charms
are coupled with mental gifts of so diverse and unusual a nature as Mrs
Jefferson has described, the probability is that seclusion is only a
whim, unless indeed--"

He broke off abruptly. A certain look of disturbance and perplexity
came into his deep grey eyes.

"Unless what?" queried Mrs Jefferson, sharply. "You look as if you saw
a vision. Unless she's committed a crime, were you going to say? She
talked of some tragedy--something that had upset her life, and affected
her mental equilibrium."

"She said--that?" His face grew suddenly very pale. The firm mouth
quivered beneath the fair thick moustache that shaded it.

"Yes," said Mrs Jefferson. "Do tell, Colonel. What is it you suspect?
A mystery--a secret crime? My, that would be interesting."

"Suspect!" he said, almost fiercely. "How should I suspect? What do
you mean? I was only wondering if indeed she possessed one of those
rare minds, sufficient for their own happiness, and living an inner life
of which the world knows nothing, and which, even if it knew, it could
not comprehend."

"Ah," said Mrs Jefferson, quickly. "Now this gets interesting. That's
just the sort of way she talked, and I confess I got a bit out of my
depth. But you, Colonel, you've come from the very land of it all.