Meanwhile Fanny Cronin felt that Paris was drifting quite out of her ken. The autumn was deepening. The first fogs of winter had made a premature appearance, and the spell of the Wallace Collection was evidently as strong as ever on Beryl. But was it the Wallace Collection? Miss Cronin never knew much about what Beryl was doing. Still, she was a woman and had her instincts, rudimentary though they were. Mr. Braybrooke must certainly have received his conge. Mrs. Clem Hodson quite agreed with Miss Cronin on that point. Beryl had probably refused the poor foolish old man that day at the Ritz when there had been that unpleasant dispute about the plum cake. But now there was this Mr. Craven! Miss Cronin had found him once with Beryl in the latter’s sitting-room; she had reason to believe they had played golf together. The young man was certainly handsome. And then Beryl had seemed quite altered just lately. Her temper was decidedly uncertain. She was unusually restless and preoccupied. Twice she had been exceedingly cross about Bourget. And she looked different, too; even Suzanne Hodson had noticed it. There was something in her face--“a sort of look,” Miss Cronin called it, with an apt feeling for the choice of words--which was new and alarming. Mrs. Clem declared that Beryl had the expression of a woman who was crazy about a man. “It’s the eyes and the cheek-bones that tell the tale, Fanny!” she had observed. “They can’t deceive a woman. Don’t talk to me about the Wallace Collection.” Poor Miss Cronin was very uneasy. The future looked almost as dark as the London days. As she lay upon the French bed, or reclined upon the sofa, or sat deep in her arm-chair, she envisaged an awful change, when the Avenue Henri Martin would know her no more, when she might have to return to the lair in Philadelphia from which Miss Van Tuyn had summoned her to take charge of Beryl. One day, when she was almost brooding over the fire, between five and six o’clock in the afternoon, the door opened and Beryl appeared. She had been out since eleven in the morning. But that was nothing new. She went out very often about half-past ten and scarcely ever came back to lunch. “Fanny!” she said. “I want you.” “What is it, dear?” said Miss Cronin, sitting forward a little in her chair and laying aside her book. “I’ve brought back a friend, and I want you to know him. Come into my sitting-room.” Miss Cronin got up obediently and remembering Mrs. Clem’s words, looked at Beryl’s cheek-bones and eyes. “Is it Mr. Craven?” she asked in a quavering voice. “Mr. Craven--no! You know him already.” “I have seen him once, dear.” “Come along!” Miss Cronin followed her into the lobby. The door of the sitting-room was open, and by the fire was standing a stalwart-looking man in a dark blue overcoat. As Miss Cronin came in he gazed at her, and she thought she had never before seen such a pair of matching brown eyes. Beryl introduced him as Mr. Arabian.