Mrs. Romayne had not been looking her best lately. Somehow the piquant style and daring colour which she affected hardly suited her as they had been wont to do. To-night there was a tired look upon her face which seemed to reveal some recently-traced lines about her mouth; lines of intense and almost dogged determination; and to her sparkling eyes, if she allowed them a moment’s repose, there came a haggard look, which had seemed for the last three days to lie only just beneath the surface. But these were subtle, hardly perceptible points, and for the rest she remained a noticeably attractive woman of the most pronounced artificial type. “Where’s the boy?” said Loring easily, when they had shaken hands. “Is he here?” Mrs. Romayne shook her head and laughed. “No!” she said. “He rather bars the soirée. A mistake, I think. One must take it for what it is, of course; an omnium-gatherum of a perfectly preposterous nature; looked at from that point of view it’s not unfunny! Do look at that girl over there! She thinks her garment is a revelation to all beholders!” “So it is,” returned Loring drily. Mrs. Romayne laughed, and dropped the glasses with which she had been coolly surveying the garment in question. “That was rather obvious, wasn’t it?” she said gaily. “By-the-bye, did you want to see Julian?” There was a moment’s pause after Loring had replied, pleasantly enough, in the negative, and then Mrs. Romayne looked up at him suddenly, and said: “It’s frightfully hot in here, don’t you think? Suppose we try one of the less popular rooms?” She stopped a moment, and then added with her most artificial laugh: “Of course, you gather from that that I’m going to victimise you again? Yes; I do want a little quiet talk with you. Who’d be a conspirator?” There was nothing of the unwilling victim, at least, in Loring’s tone or manner as he deprecated her words. Nor was there either reluctance or tedium in his face as he followed her through the room. On the contrary, it was almost lighted up by an expression of sudden purpose. Mrs. Romayne led the way to the almost deserted miniature room, and they began to walk slowly up and down, to all intents and purposes alone together. There seemed to be no particular point to Mrs. Romayne’s desire for a private conference with her fellow-conspirator. She talked about Julian; talked about him carelessly, artificially, but with a persistence which only another mother could have understood; slipping in little questions now and then on all sorts of details connected with that business side of a man’s life, as to which, she said, “women are always so in the dark;” and reverting again and again to her satisfaction and reliance in his mentor.