will take me some time to set my affairs in order--the will, and all
that."

Lady Cantourne waited with perfectly suppressed curiosity, and while
she was waiting Millicent Chyne came into the room. The girl was
dressed with her habitual perfect taste and success, and she came
forward with a smile of genuine pleasure, holding out a small hand
neatly gloved in Suede. Her ladyship was looking not at Millicent,
but at Guy Oscard.

Millicent was glad that he had called, and said so. She did not add
that during the three months that had elapsed since Jack Meredith's
sudden departure she had gradually recognised the approaching ebb of
a very full tide of popularity. It was rather dull at times, when
Jack's letters arrived at intervals of two and sometimes of three
weeks--when her girl friends allowed her to see somewhat plainly
that she was no longer to be counted as one of themselves. An
engagement sits as it were on a young lady like a weak heart on a
schoolboy, setting her apart in work and play, debarring her from
participation in that game of life which is ever going forward where
young folks do congregate.

Moreover, she liked Guy Oscard. He aroused her curiosity. There
was something in him--something which she vaguely suspected to be
connected with herself--which she wanted to drag out and examine.
She possessed more than the usual allowance of curiosity--which is
saying a good deal; for one may take it that the beginning of all
things in the feminine mind is curiosity. They want to know what is
inside Love before they love. Guy Oscard was a new specimen of the
genus homo; and while remaining perfectly faithful to Jack, Miss