hreiermeyer, and the public.

She met Logotheti in the gallery that ran round two sides of the hall,
and they both stopped and leaned over the balustrade to talk a little.

'It has been very pleasant,' she said thoughtfully. 'I'm sorry it's
over so soon.'

'Whenever you are inclined to lead this sort of life,' Logotheti
answered with a laugh, 'you need only drop me a line. You shall have
a beautiful old house and a big park and a perfect colonnade of
respectabilities--and I'll promise not to be a bore.'

Margaret looked at him earnestly for some seconds, and then asked a
very unexpected and frivolous question, because she simply could not
help it.

'Where did you get that tie?'

The question was strongly emphasised, for it meant much more to her
just then than he could possibly have guessed; perhaps it meant
something which was affecting her whole life. He laughed carelessly.

'It's better to dress like Solomon in all his glory than to be taken
for a Levantine gambler,' he answered. 'In the days when I was
simple-minded, a foreigner in a fur coat and an eyeglass once stopped
me in the Boulevard des Italiens and asked if I could give him the
address of any house where a roulette-table was kept! After that I
took to jewels and dress!'

Margaret wondered why she could not help liking him; and by sheer
force of habit she thought that he would make a very good-looking
stage Romeo.

While she was thinking of that and smiling in spite of his tie, the
old clock in the hall below chimed the hour, and it was a quarter to
seven; and at the same moment three men were getting out of a train
that had stopped at the Craythew station, three miles from Lord
Creedmore's gate.

CHAPTER XVIII

The daylight dinner was over, and the large party was more or less
scattered about the drawing-room and the adjoining picture-gallery
in groups of three and four, mostly standing while they drank their
coffee, and continued or finished the talk begun at table.

By force of habit Margaret had stopped beside the closed piano, and
had seated herself on the old-fashioned stool to have her coffee. Lady
Maud stood beside her, leaning against the corner of the instrument,
her cup in her hand, and the two young women exchanged rather idle
observations about the lovely day that was over, and the perfect
weather. Both were preoccupied and they did not look at each other;
Margaret's eyes watched Logotheti, who was half-way down the long