forgets, as it were, her own sweet arts, and all that rareness adds to
beauty. One may hear a nightingale and not mark him; which is a _lese
majeste_.

Mrs. Burgoyne's toilette matched the morning. The grey dress, so fresh and
elegant, the broad black hat above the fair hair, the violets dewy from the
garden that were fastened at her slender waist, and again at her throat
beneath the pallor of the face,--these things were of a perfection quite
evident to the critical sense of Edward Manisty. It was the perfection
that was characteristic. So too was the faded fairness of hair and skin,
the frail distinguished look. So, above all, was the contrast between the
minute care for personal adornment implied in the finish of the dress, and
the melancholy shrinking of the dark-rimmed eyes.

He watched her, through the smoke wreaths of his cigarette,--pleasantly and
lazily conscious both of her charm and her inconsistencies.

'Are you going to take Miss Foster?' he asked her.

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed.

'I made the suggestion. She looked at me with amazement, coloured crimson,
and went away. I have lost all my chances with her.'

'Then she must be an ungrateful minx'--said Manisty, lowering his voice and
looking round him towards the villa, 'considering the pains you take.'

'_Some_ of us must take pains,' said Mrs. Burgoyne, significantly.

'Some of us do'--he said, laughing. 'The others profit.--One goes on