and fine as her eyes, by
Jove!"

"It must be Miss Pennycuick--an Australian lady. She is with the
duchess's party."

"Oh, is that Miss Pennycuick? Well, now I can believe what I've heard
of her being so charming. She carries it in her face."

"She WAS charming--until she came into her money. That has quite spoilt
her."

It was Claud Dalzell who said it, and Deb heard him say it. She moved
off out of the press that had brought her within reach of his cold
voice--not to be mistaken by her for any other voice--and she vowed
through clenched teeth that never again would she come within that
distance of him, if she could help it.

The years as they passed only strengthened this determination. Each
proud inclination of the head, each ceremonious lift of the hat, added
bitterness to their mutual resentment--to his feeling that she was
spoiled by her money, and to her feeling that he wilfully misjudged
her. The breach was widened by their unconcealed flirtations--a
description mentally applied to the most ordinary man-and-woman
acquaintanceships on either side, but not inappropriate in all cases.
Claud ever loved the company of handsome women who appreciated him; Deb
naturally inclined to nice men in preference to the nicest women; and
each liked to show the other that he or she was still of high
importance to somebody. Rumours of impending marriage were continually
being wafted to his ears or hers, but nothing came of them. He was
confirmed in luxurious bachelorhood; she was aware of many
fortune-hunters, and could not bring herself to value any of her
disinterested suitors at the price of her freedom. So the one-time
lovers drifted more and more apart, until somehow they lost sight of
each other altogether; and meanwhile the years made them old without
their knowing it.

She was unreasonably upset on one occasion by the offer of a specific
for grey hair from a fashionable London hair-dresser. It was absolutely
permanent, harmless and undetectable, he said. "But I am not grey," she
indignantly informed him. Whereupon she saw his keen professional eye
wander about her brow as he murmured something about the faint
beginnings that might as well be checked. At home she studied the
matter carefully in a strong light, and called Rosalie, her maid, to
aid her. The little Frenchwoman assured her that a microscope was
needed to detect a white thread in that beautiful mass of dark
nut-brown. With a microscope, no doubt, as many