This evening was to mark the end of the feeble pretence, anyway. Lionel came for her a little early, and Miss Eppendorfer undertook to entertain him until Frankie was ready. She heard them talking gaily together, in their usual vein of preposterous flirtation. She surmised the customary brandy and soda, and she felt her invariable shade of annoyance at their _camaraderie_. If Lionel would only be--not condescending of course, but--oh, a little more---- An unusually loud shriek from the authoress startled her. “Oh, you extravagant boy! What a _beauty_! What a perfect beauty!” She hurried a bit then, and entered the room, looking her very best and loveliest, dignified, concealing her curiosity. They were on the sofa side by side, a little table before them holding the siphon and the brandy bottle, their heads together over something in the authoress’s hand. Directly she saw Frankie, she thrust the thing back at Lionel. “_You_ must show it to her!” she cried, in great excitement. Lionel extended his hand, proffered her her ring---- It was the conventional single diamond, set in platinum, a stone so pure and beautiful and of such a size that Frances almost gasped. Her face showed no pleasure at first, nothing but blank dismay. She barely stopped herself in time from saying: “But oh, how terribly expensive!” He put it on her finger, and she smiled in duty bound. But secretly it terrified her. It was so much too splendid. Perhaps she had a premonition that it was an unlucky ring---- Lionel was disappointed. He looked into Frankie’s face as they sat in the taxi, and waited for her to praise it. “Don’t you like it?” he asked, at last, as she said nothing. “Oh, yes, dear,” she answered, touched by his wistful tone, and, as she very rarely did, kissed him. “It’s beautiful. _Too_ beautiful!” III Horace lived in an overwhelmingly grand apartment house on Riverside Drive. His private door was opened by a man servant, and Frances was conducted to a boudoir where a French maid waited to assist her. She was a little nervous at the unexpectedly sumptuous tone of the establishment; she wasn’t accustomed to rich people. She dreaded meeting the mistress of such a household, not only on account of the unfavourable reports she had had from Lionel, but also on account of her richness. A most ignoble awe, from which no living soul is immune.... It might be too that she felt a warning shudder, could divine the shadow of the pain she was to suffer here. She never again entered that house, but she remembered always every detail of what she had seen there. It was the setting, the stage of such an unforgettably bitter scene. She was glad to find Horace alone, although she was not pleased by her hostess’s delay. He was in the “library,” a panelled room, dimly and richly lighted by Oriental lamps and crowded with massive furniture. (She didn’t see _any_ books.) He was very cordial and kind, though melancholy. He apologised for Julie.