"Oh, yes; quite a good deal. Mrs. Ackroyde showed me a photograph of her
as she was about eleven years ago."

"A year before the plunge!"

"Yes. She looked very handsome in the photograph. Of course, it was
tremendously touched up. Still, it gave me a real idea of what she must
once have been. But, oh! how she has changed!"

"Naturally!"

"I mean in expression. In the photograph she looks vain, imperious. Do
you know how a woman looks who is always on the watch for new lovers?"

"Well--yes, I think perhaps I do."

"Lady Sellingworth in the photograph has that on the pounce expression."

"That's rather awful, isn't it?"

"Yes; because, of course, one can see she isn't really at all young.
It's only a _fausse jeunesse_ after all, but still very effective. The
gap between the woman of the photograph and the woman of 18A Berkeley
Square is as the gulf between Dives and Lazarus. I shouldn't have loved
her then. But perhaps--perhaps a man might have thought he did. I mean
in the real way of a man--perhaps."

Craven did not inquire what Miss Van Tuyn meant exactly by that.
Instead, he asked: