birthday, the possibility of winning a young man like Preston Cheney
overbalanced all other considerations in her mind. She had never
been a vulgar coquette to whom all men were prey. She had always
been more or less discriminating. A man must be either very
attractive or very rich to win her regard. Mr Brown had been very
rich, and Preston Cheney was very attractive.

"He is more than attractive, he is positively FASCINATING," she said
to herself in the solitude of her room after the tete-a-tete over the
Welsh rarebit that evening. "I don't know when I have felt such a
pleasure in a man's presence. Not since--" But the Baroness did not
allow herself to go back so far. "If there is any fruit I DETEST, it
is DATES," she often said laughingly. "Some people delight in a good
memory--I delight in a good forgettory of the past, with its telltale
milestones of birthdays and anniversaries of marriages, deaths and
divorces."

"Mr Cheney said I looked very young to have been twice married.
Twice!" and she laughed aloud before her mirror, revealing the pink
arch of her mouth, and two perfect sets of yellow-white teeth, with
only one blemishing spot of gold visible. "I wonder if he meant it,
though?" she mused. "And the fact that I DO wonder is the sure proof
that I am really interested in this man. As a rule, I never believe
a word men say, though I delight in their flattery all the same. It
makes me feel comfortable even when I know they are lying. But I
should really feel hurt if I thought Mr Cheney had not meant what he
said. I don't believe he knows much about women, or about himself
lower than his brain. He has never studied his heart. He is all
ambition. If an ambitious and unsophisticated youth of twenty-five
or twenty-eight does get infatuated with a woman of my age--he is a