he had been separated in the crush. Sir Wilfrid recognized old Lord
Lackington, the veteran of marvellous youth, painter, poet, and sailor,
who as a gay naval lieutenant had entertained Byron in the Ægean; whose
fame as one of the raciest of naval reformers was in all the newspapers;
whose personality was still, at seventy-five, charming to most women and
challenging to most men.

As the old man turned, he was still smiling, as though in unison with
something which had just been said to him; and his black eyes under his
singularly white hair searched the crowd with the animation of a lad of
twenty. Through the energy of his aspect the flame of life still
burned, as the evening sun through a fine sky. The face had a faulty yet
most arresting brilliance. The mouth was disagreeable, the chin common.
But the general effect was still magnificent.

Sir Wilfrid started. He recalled the drawing-room in Bruton Street; the
form and face of Mademoiselle Le Breton; the sentences by which Lady
Henry had tried to put him on the track. His mind ran over past years,
and pieced together the recollections of a long-past scandal. "Of
course! _Of course!_" he said to himself, not without excitement. "She
is not like her mother, but she has all the typical points of her
mother's race."



II

It was a cold, clear morning in February, with a little pale sunshine
playing on the bare trees of the Park. Sir Wilfrid, walking southward
from the Marble Arch to his luncheon with Lady Henry, was gladly