u may
call your constitution cast-iron. All exhaustion is nervous, Sir
Gregory, and the man who can stand the biggest dose of it is the
strongest man."

"Oh, from that point of view--yes--of course," bleated the bearded
politician.

But George covered his final discomfiture.

"I wish you'd tell me your name, sir," he said to Caldegard.

Caldegard told him.

"Thought so," exclaimed George, almost with enthusiasm. "We have the
immense pleasure of looking after Miss Caldegard. My wife won't be happy
unless you come round with me and feast your eyes on what she says is
the prettiest sight in London--Miss Caldegard asleep."

This time the father's countenance did him justice.

Finucane told his wife that night that he had at last seen an old man
perfectly happy.

The potentate saw that flash of glory, and put himself "on-side."

He went round to Caldegard, and saying, "Let me congratulate you," took
the hand offered him, and went out.

"Nothing in this meeting became him like----" began Randal.

But Caldegard cut him short.

"He meant it, Randal," he said.

"Exactly. Requiescat. Let's see if we can get this neurasthenic down to
the car without waking him."

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN INTERIM REPORT.

Though maid to a lady accounted very fine, Suzanne, in presence of
beauty unadorned, was a simple and kind-hearted enthusiast in her art.
Before lunch-time next day she had done so well for Amaryllis out of
Lady Elizabeth Bruffin's wardrobe, that she declared, with conviction to
fill up the gap in evidence, "_que mademoiselle n'a jamais pu paraitre
plus seduisante, plus pimpante qu'aujourd'hui_."

"How can she know that?" asked Amaryllis laughing.

"Because nothing possible could be, you pretty creature," said Lady
Elizabeth, glowing with pleasure in the success of her nursing and in
the quality of Dick Bellamy's conquest.

She had, indeed, good reason: eleven hours' sleep, with redundant
happiness and bodily health as elastic as a child's, had made Amaryllis
scarcely more delightful to her new friends' eyes than to her own. For
on this Sunday morning she looked into her glass for the first time
through a man's eyes.

In spite of her beauty, however, and of her joy in the man who was to
see and praise it, there was yet in her heart a pricking as of
conscience.

In the night there had come to her, for the first time since Dick had
saved her from the Dutchwoman and her knife, the memory of Randal
Bell