"Perhaps not," she answered. "And yet in a very few weeks I shall have done with it all. Do you think that I shall ever make an actress, my friend?" "I doubt it," he answered bluntly. "You have not feeling enough." She smiled at him. "It is like old times," she said, "to hear these home truths. All the same, I don't admit it." He shook his head. "To be an actress," he said, "you require a special and peculiar temperament. I do not believe that there has ever lived a really great actress whose moral character from the ordinary point of view would bear inspection." "Then I," she said, "have too much character." "Too much character, and too little sentiment," he answered. "Too much sensibility and too cold a heart. Too easily roused emotions and too little passion. How could you draw the curtain aside which hides the great and holy places of life--you, who have never loved?" "You have become French to the core," she murmured. "You would believe that life is kindled by the passions alone." There was silence between them. Then a servant girl brought in a telegram. Anna tore it open and passed it to Courtlaw. It was from Brendon. "Hill gradually recovering consciousness. Doctor says depositions to-night. Recovery impossible.--BRENDON." He looked at her gravely. "I think," he said, "that some one ought to warn her." "It is Number 8, Cavendish Square," she answered simply. * * * * * Courtlaw found himself ushered without questions into Annabel's long low drawing-room, fragrant with flowers and somewhat to his surprise, crowded with guests. From the further end of the apartment came the low music of a violin. Servants were passing backwards and forwards with tea and chocolate. For a moment he did not recognize Annabel. Then she came a few steps to meet him. "Mr. Courtlaw, is it not," she remarked, with lifted eyebrows. "Really it is very kind of you to have found me out." He was bereft of words for a moment, and in that moment she escaped, having passed him on deftly to one of the later arrivals. "Lady Mackinnor," she said, "I am sure that you must have heard of Mr. David Courtlaw. Permit me to make him known to you--Mr. Courtlaw--Lady Mackinnor."