big pearls of perfect
colour which adorned Violet Oliver's white throat.

She looked Sir John straight in the face.

"Would you introduce Dick to Mrs. Oliver now, if you had not done it
before?" she asked.

"My dear lady," protested Sir John, "if I met Dick at a little hotel in
the Dauphine, and did not introduce him to the ladies who were travelling
with me, it would surely reflect upon Dick, not upon the ladies"; and
with that subtle evasion Sir John escaped from the fire of questions. He
turned the conversation into another channel, pluming himself upon his
cleverness. But he forgot that the subtlest evasions of the male mind are
clumsy and obvious to a woman, especially if the woman be on the alert.
Sybil Linforth did not think Sir John had showed any cleverness whatever.
She let him turn the conversation, because she knew what she had set out
to know. That string of pearls had made the difference between Sir John's
estimate of Violet Oliver last year and his estimate of her this season.

CHAPTER IX

LUFFE IS REMEMBERED

Violet Oliver took a quick step forward when she caught sight of
Linforth's tall and well-knit figure coming towards her; and the smile
with which she welcomed him was a warm smile of genuine pleasure. There
were people who called Violet Oliver affected--chiefly ladies. But
Phyllis Casson was not one of them.

"There is no one more natural in the room," she was in the habit of
stoutly declaring when she heard the gossips at work, and we know, on her
father's authority, that Phyllis Casson's judgments were in most
instances to be respected. Certainly it was not Violet Oliver's fault
that her face in repose took on a wistful and pathetic look, and that her
dark quiet eyes, even when her thoughts were absent--and her thoughts
were often absent--rested pensively upon you with an unconscious
flattery. It appeared that she was pondering deeply who and what you
were; whereas she was probably debating whether she should or should not
powder her nose before she went in to supper. Nor was she to blame
because at the approach of a friend that sweet and thoughtful face would
twinkle suddenly into mischief and amusement. "She is as God made her,"
Phyllis Casson protested, "and He made her beautiful."

It will be recognised, therefore, that there was truth in Sir John's
observation that young men wanted to protect her. But the bald statement
is not sufficient. Whether that quick transition from p