When they reached the hotel and Craven was about to say good-bye, Miss Van Tuyn said to him: “Are you coming to see me one day?” Her expression suggested that she was asking a question to which she knew the answer, in this following the example just given to her by Craven. “I want to,” he said. “Then do give me your card.” He gave it to her. “We both want to know her secret,” she said, as she put it into her card-case. “Our curiosity about that dear, delightful woman is a link between us.” Craven looked into her animated eyes, which were strongly searching him for admiration. He took her hand and held it for a moment. “I don’t think I want to know Lady Sellingworth’s secret if she doesn’t wish me to know it,” he said. “Now--is that true?” “Yes,” he said, with a genuine earnestness which seemed to amuse her. “Really, really it is true.” She sent him a slightly mocking glance. “Well, I am less delicate. I want to know it, whether she wishes me to or not. And yet I am more devoted to her than you are. I have known her for quite a long time.” “One can learn devotion very quickly,” he said, pressing her hand before he let it go. “In an afternoon?” “Yes, in an afternoon.” “Happy Lady Sellingworth!” she said. Then she turned to go into the hotel. Just before she passed through the swing door she looked round at Craven. The movement of her young head was delicious. “After all, in spite of the charm that won’t die,” he thought, “there’s nothing like youth for calling you.” He thought Lady Sellingworth really more charming than Miss Van Tuyn, but he knew that the feeling of her hand in his would not have thrilled something in him, a very intimate part of himself, as he had just been thrilled. He felt almost angry with himself as he walked away, and he muttered under his breath: “Damn the animal in me!” CHAPTER IV Not many days later Craven received a note from Miss Van Tuyn asking him to come to see her at a certain hour on a certain day. He went and found her alone in a private sitting-room overlooking the Park. For the first time he saw her without a hat. With her beautiful corn-coloured hair uncovered she looked, he thought, more lovely than when he had seen her at Lady Sellingworth’s. She noted that thought at once, caught it on the wing through his mind, as it were, and caged it comfortably in hers. “I have seen the ‘old guard,’” she said, after she had let him hold and press her hand for two or three seconds. “What, the whole regiment?” said Craven. She sat down on a sofa by a basket of roses. He sat down near her. “No; only two or three of the leaders.” “Do I know them?” “Probably. Mrs. Ackroyde?” “I know her.” “Lady Archie Brook?” “Her, too.” “I’ve also seen Lady Wrackley.” “I have met Lady Wrackley, but I can hardly say I know her. Still, she shows her teeth at me when I come into a room where she is.” “They are wonderful teeth, aren’t they?” “Astonishing!” “And they are her own--not by purchase.”