overdressed, in the drawing-room with a sleek-haired, pale young
man known to me as Tankerville Gifford--to his intimates, of whom
I was not one, and in the personal paragraphs of the coloured
sporting weeklies, as 'Tanky'. I had seen him frequently at
restaurants. Once, at the Empire, somebody had introduced me to
him; but, as he had not been sober at the moment, he had missed
any intellectual pleasure my acquaintanceship might have afforded
him. Like everybody else who moves about in London, I knew all
about him. To sum him up, he was a most unspeakable little cad,
and, if the drawing-room had not been Mrs Drassilis's, I should
have wondered at finding him in it.

Mrs Drassilis introduced us.

'I think we have already met,' I said.

He stared glassily.

'Don't remember.'

I was not surprised.

At this moment Cynthia came in. Out of the corner of my eye I
observed a look of fuddled displeasure come into Tanky's face at
her frank pleasure at seeing me.

I had never seen her looking better. She is a tall girl, who
carries herself magnificently. The simplicity of her dress gained
an added dignity from comparison with the rank glitter of her
mother's. She wore unrelieved black, a colour which set off to