She looked round the crowded room and nodded to several acquaintances. There was a confusion of sound that yet was not noisy,--the hum of talk and laughter, the frequent popping of champagne corks, a soft continuous rustle of movement, and the clatter of knives and forks. She glanced smilingly across Van Bleit, who was trying to catch the attention of a waiter, to where Mrs Lawless sat, leaning forward looking away from her towards the next table. "Zoe, the sight of all these people feeding makes me hungry," she said. "Of course you're hungry," Van Bleit responded. "You can't sit up all night on nothing." But Mrs Lawless apparently did not hear. She was gazing with unconscious intensity at a man at the table on the opposite side of the opening. He had his face towards her; but he had seen her entry, and, having watched her while he could do so unobserved, he now gave his undivided attention to the girl beside him. Mrs Lawless regarded the girl with critical interest. There was nothing especially remarkable about her in any way. She was young and fresh-looking, and wore a simple white frock, and a pearl necklace the beads of which were of a size to open up doubts as to their genuineness in an inquiring mind. Mrs Lawless did not question the pearls; she accepted them, as she accepted the peerless youth of the wearer, as parts of a whole the effect of which was pleasing. She turned in response to a question of Van Bleit's as to what she would eat, and answered carelessly: "Oh! anything." He ordered for the three of them, and then sat back in his seat and surveyed the scene at his leisure. He saw Lawless at the table opposite with the girl he had danced with most of the evening; but he made no reference to him. He acknowledged the acquaintance before Mrs Lawless, but, remembering what Lawless had told him concerning her disapproval of himself, he never admitted intimacy for fear of prejudicing his cause. Mrs Smythe, on the other hand, made no concealment of her liking for her friend's discredited kinsman. She did not often speak of him to Mrs Lawless, recognising that the subject was rather more painful than the ordinary family dispute, but nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to assist towards a reconciliation between them. With that end in view she had given Lawless an open invitation to her house, thinking that perhaps if occasionally brought together by chance they might eventually, if only for the sake of appearance, smooth over their differences and close the breach. Continued feud was the invariable result of an exaggerated sense of dignity on both sides, and it was old-fashioned. But Lawless very seldom availed himself of her kindness, and had managed his few visits so far when Mrs Lawless had not been present. She more than suspected design in this, and it helped to strengthen her belief that the estrangement had originated with him, and that he was responsible for its continuation.