Randolph, who reminded him in some subtle way of Margaret Blair. In his
childhood he had believed this drawing-room to be the most beautiful
place on earth, and he never entered it now without a feeling of regret
for a shattered illusion.

As he took Margaret's hand her expression of intelligent sympathy went
straight to his heart; and he told himself emphatically that after all
the familiar graces in women were the most lovable. She was a small
fragile girl, with a lovely oval face, nut-brown hair that grew in a
"widow's peak" on her forehead, and the prettiest dark blue eyes in the
world. Her figure drooped slightly in the shoulders, and was, as Mary
Byrd pointed out in her dashing way, "without the faintest pretence to
style." But if Margaret lacked "style," she possessed an unconscious
grace which seemed to Stephen far more attractive. It was delightful to
watch the flowing lines of her clothes, as if, he used to imagine in a
fanciful strain, she were poured out of some slender porcelain vase. Her
dress to-night, of delicate blue crêpe, began slightly below the throat
and reached almost to her ankles. It was a fashion which he had always
admired; but he realized that it gave Margaret, who was only twenty-two,
a quaint air of maturity.

"I am so sorry I am late," he said, "but I had to go back to the office
for a paper I'd forgotten." It was the truth as far as it went; and yet
because it was not the whole truth, because his delay was due, not to
his return for the paper, but to his meeting with Patty Vetch in the
Square, his conscience pricked him uncomfortably. When deceit was so
easy it ceased to be a temptation.

She looked at him with an expression of guileless sympathy. "After
working all day I should think you would be tired," she murmured. That