So Felice, who had been kept up until the small hours of the previous morning, was made to arrange and unpick, to drape and re-drape, to alter and exchange article upon article of Dora’s attire. "Mademoiselle est ravissante!" she cried at length, with the easy lie of the Latin races, as, the task completed, Miss Beadon surveyed her reflection in the mirror with a satisfied smile. From crown to foot she represented wealth, and yet how simple was the whole costume! The dress itself was suitable only for a _débutante_ in her first youth—Dora always dressed twenty years younger than her looks—but her jewels were worth a fortune. Brand, arriving at the party with his wife rather late in the evening, noticed them at once and took in their significance. "You have excelled even yourself to-night," he said, adopting the tone of solemn fervour in which a very pious Catholic speaks of relics. "Better not say such things, perhaps, but circumstances are sometimes too strong for one. Yours is a regal power, Miss Beadon, yet you dispense your favours with quite exquisite simplicity." Dora looked up, surprised. Up to the present she had found little in common with Brand; now she began to think she had misjudged him. "Oh, well, it’s always nice to help one’s friends," she said, awkwardly fingering her fan. "Evelyn does it too, doesn’t she? She and Mr. Farquharson are quite inseparable, I hear." "Oh, Evelyn——" Brand shrugged his shoulder, and, obeying the invitation of her gesture, seated himself deferentially beside her. "What of that? Compare her years to yours, my dear young lady. Why, she’s like a mother to Farquharson. I dare say they are really about the same age, but Evelyn’s hard life makes her appear many years his senior. Now you, young and fresh——" He paused and sighed. "Ah, Richard Farquharson’s a lucky fellow in more ways than one," he said daringly. "I can’t think what you mean. How quite absurd of you!" giggled Miss Beadon. "You must really ask the Brands to dine next week, father," she announced a little later. "We’ve all been mistaken in Mr. Brand, I’m sure; there’s ever so much more in him than one would think. We had a most interesting talk together just now. And I’m rather sorry for him, too. I’m afraid dear Evelyn doesn’t make him happy. She’s such an icicle, and from what he said to me just now I’m sure he’s a man of extraordinarily deep feelings. There’s nothing sadder, dear, is there, than to see a woman sow sympathy broadcast as Evelyn does, and yet not spare a grain of it for her husband?"