"My poor little wife is completely run down," Claude told her. "She was a rag this morning, and it would have been cruel to persuade her to come with me, though I hated leaving her in London at this dismal fag-end of the season. I thought her pal, Susan Amphlett, would have spent most of the week with her, but I hear Lady Susie is at the Saxemundhams'." "Do you suppose Susie would miss a Goodwood--no, not for friendship," exclaimed Sir Joseph, the jovial host, one of the last of the private bankers of London, coming of a family so long established in wealth that he could look down upon new money. "Well, there is one of our beauties ruled out. I don't know what we should do if we hadn't secured Mrs. Bellenden." "It was just as well to ask her this year," said his wife, with pinched lips, "though it was Sir Joseph's idea, not mine. I doubt if the best people will care about meeting her next season." "What has Mrs. Bellenden done to risk her future status?" Claude asked, and then, with his cynical smile. "Certainly she has committed the unforgivable sin of being the handsomest woman in London, which is quite enough to set all the other women against her." "It isn't her beauty that is the crime, but the use she makes of it. She has made more than one wife I know unhappy." "And yet you ask her to your house?" "Sir Joseph invites her. I only write the letter. So far she is just possible; but if I have any knowledge of character, she will be quite impossible before long." "Let us make the most of her while her good days last," Claude said, laughing. "I should like to make a sketch of her before the brand of infamy is on her forehead. I have met her often, but my wife and she have not become allies; and if she is a snare for husbands and a peril for wives, it's rather lucky that Vera is not with me, for after a week in this delightful house they must have become pals." "I don't think proximity would make two such women friends," Lady Waterbury replied severely. "Again, if I am any judge of character, I should say that Vera and Mrs. Bellenden must be utterly unsympathetic." "My wife and I have a friendly compact," said Sir Joseph. "She may invite as many dowdy nieces and boring aunts as she likes, provided she asks no troublesome questions about the pretty women I want her to ask, and gives my nominees the best rooms." "Poor Aunt Sophia had a mere dog-hole last Christmas," sighed Lady Waterbury. "Well, didn't she bring her dog?" "Poor darling; she never goes anywhere without Ponto: and, of course, she is a shade tiresome, and it is rather sweet of Joe to put up with her. Mrs. Bellenden may pass this time." "Did I hear somebody talking of me?" cried a crystal clear voice, and a woman as lovely as a midsummer dawn came with swift step across the velvet turf towards the stone bench where Claude Rutherford and his host and hostess were seated.