window a few inches, and returned to his place.
Catherine was lying back, her eyes half-closed, her arms hanging
listlessly on either side of her chair.

"Is that better?" he enquired.

"Very much," she assured him. "Still, I think that if you do not mind,
I will go to bed. I am troubled with a very rare attack of nerves. Drink
your whisky and soda, and then will you take me into the drawing-room?"

He played with his tumbler thoughtfully. His first impulse was to
drop it. Intervention, however, was at hand. The door opened, and the
Princess entered with Lord Shervinton.

"At last!" the former exclaimed. "I have been looking for you
everywhere, child. I am sure that you are quite tired out, and I insist
upon your going to bed."

"Finish your whisky and soda," Catherine begged Julian, "and I will lean
on your arm as far as the staircase."

Fate stretched out her right hand to help him. The Princess took
possession of her niece.

"I shall look after you myself," she insisted. "Mr. Orden is wanted to
play billiards. Lord Shervinton is anxious for a game."

"I shall be delighted," Julian answered promptly.

He moved to the door and held it open. Catherine gave him her fingers
and a little half-doubtful smile.

"If only you were not so cruelly obstinate!" she sighed.

He found no words with which to answer her. The shock of his discovery
was still upon him.

"You'll give me thirty in a hundred, Julian," Lord Shervinton called
out cheerfully. "And shut that door as soon as you can, there's a good
fellow. There's a most confounded draught."

CHAPTER IX

It was at some nameless hour in the early morning when Julian's vigil
came to an end, when the handle of his door was slowly turned, and the
door itself pushed open and closed again. Julian, lying stretched upon
his bed, only half prepared for the night, with a dressing gown
wrapped around him, continued to breathe heavily, his eyes half-closed,
listening intently to the fluttering of light garments, the soft, almost
noiseless footfall of light feet. He heard her shake out his dinner
coat, try the pockets, heard the stealthy opening and closing of the
drawers in his wardrobe. Presently the footsteps drew near to his bed.
For a moment he was obliged to set his teeth. A little waft of peculiar,
unanalysable perfume, half-fascinating, half-repellent, came to him with
a sense of disturbing familiarity. She paused by his bedside. He felt
her hand steal under t