Margery's glasses, and it did not annoy her.

"Yes," she said, smiling at him with her kind, true eyes; "we will
consider it a tie, and surely it will prove a tie to our friendship.
Thank you, Dal, for all you have told me."

Arrived in her room, Jane found she had half an hour to spare before
dressing. She took out her diary. Her conversation with Garth
Dalmain seemed worth recording, particularly his story of the
preacher whose beauty of soul redeemed the ugliness of his body. She
wrote it down verbatim.

Then she rang for her maid, and dressed for dinner, and the concert
which should follow.




CHAPTER VI

THE VEIL IS LIFTED


"MISS CHAMPION! Oh, here you are! Your turn next, please. The last
item of the local programme is in course of performance, after which
the duchess explains Velma's laryngitis--let us hope she will not
call it 'appendicitis'--and then I usher you up. Are you ready?"

Garth Dalmain, as master of ceremonies, had sought Jane Champion on
the terrace, and stood before her in the soft light of the hanging