“Don’t smoke, Sibella,” said Grahame. He was the sort of man who would not have objected to the female belongings of anyone else smoking, but who objected to his own doing so, on the ground that it was his business to see that they suffered no material damage in the eyes of the world. “What nonsense, Grahame! Of course I shall smoke—as much as I like—well no, not quite as much as I like because that would spoil my teeth, and I don’t intend to do anything that would injure my personal appearance.” “That is a very patriotic resolve,” I laughed. “There is some beauty so striking that it becomes a national property.” Sibella made a face. “Thank you. I’m nothing of the kind.” “For goodness’ sake don’t flatter Sibella,” said Grahame. “She is vain enough already.” “So long as she is vain and not conceited it does not matter.” “The difference?” “Well, vanity is a determination to make the best of our superiorities whilst frankly admitting them; conceit is a morbid desire to enforce the fact on other people.” “Subtle,” murmured Grahame, who never spoke above his middle tones, “but I am not convinced. Sibella thinks a great deal too much of herself.” “It is better than thinking too little of one’s self,” said Sibella, blowing rings of smoke and pursing up her lips deliciously, till I could have cried out on her for heartlessness. “Very much better,” I assented. “People who think too little of themselves generally end by a mock humility which is a form of conceit infinitely tedious. No, believe me, the vanity you decry has in it something of virtue.” Grahame turned to Sibella. “Haven’t you noticed, Sibella, how much older Israel has grown of late?” “Not in looks,” cried Sibella. “To-night he looks like a boy.” This idea pleased me. The author of the secret that lay in young Gascoyne’s grave looking almost a boy savoured of the incongruous, for which I had developed an appetite. “I didn’t mean in appearance,” said Grahame. “Israel looks as if he had never had a trouble.” The idea pleased me even more. Grahame’s criticism showed that I was playing my game with the right effect, and that the weeks of prostration following on the successful _coup_ at Lowhaven had left no effect. Sibella, from her very nature, could not forbear giving me one or two glances with just enough of feeling in them to fill the atmosphere with a vague suggestion of sentimentality, but I behaved as if the very air she breathed was not to me love’s own narcotic. I fought fiercely against myself lest I should give the least sign that her power over me was supreme as ever. “What lovely chocolates you used to bring me, Israel!” I laughed buoyantly. “Ah, but you remember the first Lionel brought you. They cost more.” “As if I cared for that!” Grahame laughed in his turn. “As if, Sibella dear, you ever cared for anything else.” Grahame had the most incomparable way of pointing out people’s faults to their faces without offence. Sibella, however, looked angry.