She was a very queen of coquetry, understanding and practising every one of its refinements. You always saw the most attractive elements of any company converging to the spot where she sat, like straws drawn in by an eddy. Where was the secret of her power? Men who had been led captive at her chariot-wheels asked themselves that question in after days, when freedom was partially regained, and got puzzled over it, as one does over the incidents of a very vivid dream. It was a fair face, certainly, but there were others more brilliant in their beauty, more winning in their loveliness. Her frank boldness of speech dazzled you at first with its natural, careless _verve_--she kept for special occasions the tender confidential tones that lingered in your ears through many sleepless night-watches--but several of her beaten rivals had really thrice her wit and cleverness, and, as conversationalists, could have distanced her easily. Maud Brabazon seemed to diffuse round her an atmosphere of temptation. Cold-blooded men, of austere morals and rigid propriety, felt irresistibly impelled to make love to her on the shortest acquaintance, not wildly or passionately, but in an airy, light-minded fashion, which left no remorse, hardly a regret, behind. It was strange that she had never yet got entangled in any of the toils she wove so deftly, for the bitterest of friends or foes had never dared to impute to her any darker crime than consummate coquetry. One who knew her well when the subject was being discussed, thus expressed himself in the figurative language of the turf, of which he was a stanch supporter: "Yes, she can win, when she's in front all the way. Wait till you see her collared; _they've never made her gallop yet_." Thereby intimating his opinion that the Subduer was still in the future, by whom Maud's peace of mind was to be imperilled. All things considered, it seemed likely that poetical justice was going to assert itself in the shape of merited retaliation impending over the Cherub's graceless head; a state of things so perfectly satisfactory that we may as well leave them there for the present. Pressing affairs called Lord Clydesdale away from Dene on the following day. He had probably reasons of his own for cutting his visit short rather abruptly. He thought that whatever interests he might have at stake would be advanced fully as well in his absence, for the present. Somehow or another, before he went, Max Vavasour was made aware of the wager with Harding Knowles. On the occasion of a great robbery-- When the knowing ones, for once, stand in With some dark flyer meant at last to win--