far as I knew, Brunow had certainly little enough to do with her, and their meeting might have been one of the purest chance; but that she was associated in some way with the baroness was evident enough from her presence in that lady's carriage. It is a bitter thing to have to go back on the past in this way, but I cannot tell my story without it. If there are worthless women in the world, there are some who are very nearly angels, and I feel as if I were almost dishonoring the sex in telling the truth about poor Constance, for I had been very honestly in love with her when I was a lad, and it seems even now, after the lapse of all these years, as if I were defiling the place which had once been a sanctuary. But when I had recovered from the shock of my surprise and began to understand what I had seen, it crossed me in a very vivid fashion that the mistrusting dislike with which I had always regarded the baroness had received strong confirmation in an unexpected way; for Constance Pleyel was not and had not been for years one with whom any self-respecting woman would wish to be intimate. The thought of the Baroness Bonnar, fresh from contact with her, coming into Violet's presence was anything but agreeable. I am not much of a prude, and was never disposed to hound a woman down for an error in love; but the plain English of the matter was that no woman who would care to know Constance Pleyel had a right to exchange a word with Violet. My mind was a good deal exercised about this matter as I walked swiftly homeward. I thought about it while I was dressing, and as I drove back to Lady Rollinson's that strange _rencontre_ filled my thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. You may judge of my surprise when the baroness appeared as the very last of the invited guests. Considering the elaborate toilet she had made she had shown wonderful despatch, and though I have no pretensions to be versed in these mysteries, I should have been inclined to think that such a display as she made could only have been achieved with an hour or two's labor. In spite of haste, if she had been really pressed for time, her make-up was as perfect as ever, and what with her flashing white shoulders and flashing white teeth, her sparkling diamonds and sparkling eyes, and the artistic flush of artificial color on lier cheeks, she looked quite dazzling.