"Why not?"

"I have my little private reasons," she murmured.

At that moment Craven was conscious of a silly desire to take her in his
arms, bundle of vanities though he knew her to be. He hated himself for
being so ordinary. But there it was!

He looked at her eyebrows. They were dark and beautifully shaped and
made an almost unnerving contrast with her corn-coloured hair.

"I know what you are thinking," she said.

"Impossible!"

"You are thinking that I darken them. But I don't."

And then Craven gave up and became frankly foolish.



CHAPTER V

Though ordinary enough in her youthful egoism, and entirely _du jour_ in
her flagrantly shown vanity, Miss Van Tuyn, as Craven was to find out,
was really something of an original. Her independence was abnormal and
was mental as well as physical. She lived a life of her own, and her
brain was not purely imitative. She not only acted often originally,
but thought for herself. She was not merely a very pretty girl. She was
somebody. And somehow she had trained people to accept her daring way of