of manner, the independence of expression, could not be mistaken
in a country of established forms. She had abundant brown hair
skillfully arranged under a smart French hat. Her eyes were
blue; not the blue of any painted color; it was the blue of
remote spaces in the tropic sky.

The old woman spoke without looking at the girl.

"Then," she said, "it's all quite as" - she hesitated for a word
- "extraordinary as we have been led to believe."

There was the slow accent of Southern blood in the girl's voice
as she went on.

"Lady Mary," she said, "it's all far more extraordinary than you
have been led to believe - than any one could ever have led you
to believe. I deliberately picked the man up. I waited for him
outside the Savoy, and pretended to be uncertain about an
address. He volunteered to take me in his motor and I went with
him. I told him I was alone in London, at the Ritz. It was
Blackwell's bank I pretended to be looking for. Then we had
tea."

The girl paused.

Presently she continued: "That's how it began: You're mistaken to
imagine that Sir Henry Marquis presented me to this American. It
was the other way about; I presented Sir Henry. I had the run of
the Ritz," she went on. "We all do if we scatter money. Sir
Henry came in to tea the next afternoon. That's how he met Mr.