wants to speak to you."

So they took the rose-tinted rococo elevator; Austin went away to his
own quarters, and Selwyn tapped at Nina's boudoir.

"Is that you, Phil? One minute; Watson is finishing my hair. . . . Come
in, now; and kindly keep your distance, my friend. Do you suppose I want
Rosamund to know what brand of war-paint I use?"

"Rosamund," he repeated, with a good-humoured shrug; "it's likely--isn't
it?"

"Certainly it's likely. You'd never know you were telling her
anything--but she'd extract every detail in ten seconds. . . . I
understand she adores you, Phil. What have you done to her?"

"That's likely, too," he remarked, remembering his savagely polite
rebuke to that young matron after the Minster dinner.

"Well, she does; you've probably piqued her; that's the sort of man she
likes. . . . Look at my hair--how bright and wavy it is, Phil. Tell me,
_do_ I appear fairly pretty to-night?"

"You're all right, Nina; I mean it," he said. "How are the kids? How is
Eileen?"

"That's why I sent for you. Eileen is furious at being left here all
alone; she's practically well and she's to dine with Drina in the
library. Would you be good enough to dine there with them? Eileen, poor
child, is heartily sick of her imprisonment; it would be a mercy, Phil."