By chance she did open them at the moment--quite slowly. They were
dark liquid brown and seemed to be all lustrous iris which gazed
unmovingly at the object in of focus. That object was the Head of
the House of Coombe.

"She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze," he said,
and stared back unmovingly also, but with a sort of cold interest.






CHAPTER II





The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in
Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own and having
been accepted by his acquaintances was not infrequently used by
them in their light moments in the same spirit. The peerage recorded
him as a Marquis and added several lesser attendant titles.

"When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times,"
was his point of view, "to be born 'the Head of the House' was a
weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory
interviews with one's parents and governors it was brought up against
one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and