replied the old lady, acidly. "How old is she?"

"Twenty-two."

John Allandale, or "Poker" John as he was more familiarly called by all
who knew him, was still looking over at the group, but an expression had
suddenly crept into his eyes which might, in a less robust-looking man,
have been taken for disquiet--even fear. His companion's words had
brought home to him a partial realization of a responsibility which was
his.

"Twenty-two," she repeated, "and not a relative living except a
good-hearted but thoroughly irresponsible uncle. That child is to be
pitied, John."

The old man sighed. He took no umbrage at his companion's
brusquely-expressed estimation of himself. He was still watching the
group at the other end of the room. His face was clouded, and a keen
observer might have detected a curious twitching of his bronzed right
cheek, just beneath the eye. His eyes followed the movement of a
beautiful girl surrounded by a cluster of men, immaculately dressed,
bronzed--and, for the most part, wholesome-looking. She was dark, almost
Eastern in her type of features. Her hair was black with the blackness
of the raven's wing, and coiled in an ample knot low upon her neck. Her
features, although Eastern, had scarcely the regularity one expects in
such a type, whilst her eyes quashed without mercy any idea of such
extraction for her nationality. They were gray, deeply ringed at the
pupil with black. They were keen eyes--fathomless in their suggestion of
strength--eyes which might easily mask a world of good or evil.