And yet the cheque did not make Lossie as happy as usual. In sudden flashes, now and then, she realised her position--saw over. Beauty she had, and brains, but up to now, and she was twenty-seven, they had brought her little good. She had received no really good offers, but it never seemed to strike her that her extreme expensiveness in dress and tastes had a good deal to do with it, and her absorbing (and patent) passion for Mackrell still more. To be sure there was that ridiculous George Conant, at present the favourite nephew and heir of the enormously rich Mrs. Elkins, but as the old lady made a new will every three months or so, and he might do something specially idiotic to annoy her, it would be madness to bet on _that_ chance. Poor Frank would be safe, and less trouble--anyway, she had no intention of drifting into that grey life in which one is first with nobody, or worse still (for Aunt Lavinia's pension died with her), forming one of that hopeless army of incapables that is always "looking for something," and helpless, unbraced, expects a heaven-born post to fit it, not that it should learn to fit itself for a post. Lossie sighed impatiently, and glanced across at Gay, who sat, needlework in hand, in the charming room that was feminine like herself, and fresh and sweet, with nothing whatever about her to suggest the Trotting or Race-course, and, as often before, she tried to analyse the irresistible charm of her cousin. "A good sort" (from the women), "a _darned_ good sort" (from the men), was the invariable verdict passed upon her, and even taking up vulgar Trotting, and doing things men hate their women to do, had not affected her popularity. "The first time you see Gay Lawless you'll hardly think her good-looking, the second you'll fall in love with her, and the third you'll ask her to marry you!" Lossie had once heard one man tell another--but as to _beauty_! It was true that Gay's eyes had a curious power of refraction, so that shades of feeling chased each other over them like shadows on a clear pool, and her skin had the clear transparency that goes with hair that not so long ago, as Gay confidentially told her men friends, was "carrots," though the laugh with which she said it, showing the loveliest little white teeth in the world, usually inclined the person addressed to a quite contrary opinion. But compared with what Lossie found in her own mirror, Gay had no good looks at all. "I half expected Mr. Rensslaer," said Gay, glancing at the clock. "He's not a beauty," said Lossie, with some irrelevance, but he was no favourite of hers, and, on his part, he had never found reason to alter his summing up of her on the first occasion they had met. "His kind face is more distinguished than any man's I know," cried Gay with spirit. "I learn more from him in five minutes, than all the stupid people I've ever known put together!" "Including Chris?" said Lossie drily. "Including Chris."