They parted, for Storm had a luncheon engagement for which he did not wish to be unpunctual. He met Susan at the portals of the Regal, and thought that he had rarely seen her looking so beautiful. Being gloriously ignorant of the niceties of feminine apparel, he received from her dress no other impression than that it suited her to perfection. In her smart costume of plain bisque, relieved only by the daring splash of green where a flowing kerchief was knotted loosely at the throat of her white silk undertunic, she was piquantly beautiful. The bright sunshine lit up her smiling face, and its searching brilliance at once absolved her red lips and the faint flush of health on her cheeks from all accusation of artifice. They made a striking couple. Her loveliness was none of that pink-and-white fragility to which a certain type of Frenchwoman aspires--prettiness which is at one and the same glance irresistibly attractive and yet so obviously unfitted for any locale but the drawing-room and the Poiret gown. She was essentially a girl of the open spaces, with the lithe, free grace of carriage and the delicate browning of a clear skin which come only with a perfectly functioning body bred of, and to, the love of plenty of exercise in the eye of the sun and in the breath of the wind. And Storm fitted her perfectly, being a man good to look upon and finely built, and having a boyish love of laughter always lurking in his steady eyes to counteract the first impression of hardness you got from the squareness of his jaw and the vigorous set of his mouth. Outstanding at once by the lissom poise of his athletic figure, with just that indefinable air of restraint about him which is the infallible sign of a tremendously dynamic vitality controlled and directed by a dominant will. He had meant to talk to her gravely, warning her of the dangers she was running, and pointing out the foolhardiness of her last night's adventure. She, for her part, had made up her mind to laugh at his fears and complain of his selfishness in keeping all the thrills for himself. He had meant to be firm: she had meant to be defiant. Somehow, neither programme produced according to schedule. "Who was the man you recognized last night?" he asked her point blank, and her resolutions crumbled so weakly that she hated herself. "The man we saw when we had that motor accident," she answered meekly. "Mattock, I think you called him." Storm had known that, unless she was bluffing, it must have been one of three men, and he annoyed her afresh by the coolness with which he received the report. "He's an enterprising man," he murmured, passing his cigarette case across the table. "One of these days there'll be trouble for James--you wager the haberdashery on uncle!" "Aren't you interested?" He raised his eyebrows.