ned to know her.
He might have given the letter to one of them. It would have been more
natural. But"--Dion hesitated--"well, he wanted to say a word or two to
some one who knew her, I suppose."

Rosamund quite understood there were things Dion did not care to tell
even to her. She did not want to hear them. She was not at all a curious
woman.

"I'm glad you are able to take the letter," she said.

And then she began to talk about something else. Mr. Thrush's prospects
with the Dean, which were even yet not quite decided.

By the quick train at nine o'clock Dion left Welsley next morning; he
was in London by half-past ten. He had of course written to Mrs. Clarke
asking if he could see her. She had given him an appointment for
three o'clock at the flat she had taken for a few months in Park
Side, Knightsbridge. Dion went first to the City, and after doing some
business there, and lunching with his uncle at the Cheshire Cheese, got
into a cab and drove to Knightsbridge.

Mrs. Clarke's flat was on the first floor of a building which faced the
street on one side and Hyde Park on the other. Dion rang at a large,
very solid oak door. In two or three minutes the door was opened by an
elderly maid, with high cheek-bones and long and narrow light gray
eyes, who said, with a foreign accent, that Mrs. Clarke was at home.
Afterwards Dion knew that this woman was a Russian and Mrs. Clarke's own
maid.

She showed Dion into a long curving hall in which a fire was burning.
Here he left his hat and coat. While he was taking the coat off he
had time to think, "What an original hall this is!" From it he got an
impression of warmth and of a pleasant dimness. He had really no time
to look carefully about, but a quick glance told him that there were
interesting things in this hall, or at any rate interestingly combined.
He was conscious of the stamp of originality.

The Russian maid showed him into a drawing-room and went away to tell
"Madame." She did not go out by the hall, but walked the whole length of
the long narrow drawing-room, and passed through a small doorway at its
farther end. Through this doorway there filtered into the drawing-room a
curious blue light. All the windows of the drawing-room looked into Hyde
Park, on to the damp grass, the leafless trees, the untenanted spaces of
autumn.

Dion went to the fireplace, which faced the far doorway. There was not
a sound in the room; not a sound came to it just then from wit