She was a remarkable young woman, this Cleopatra Fairfax, and few men could have resisted her charms of person and fortune. True, in features she could not be called beautiful, but her eyes were glorious blue ones, her hair abundant and of a golden hue, while her skin was browned by exposure to sun and wind, since M'lle Cleo was a confirmed golf player, a bicyclist, and a voyager over many seas. Her form at least was enough like that of Venus to set many a famous painter anxious because his last models lacked those qualities which a lavish Nature had showered so abundantly on this child of fortune. This then was Cousin Cleo, an impulsive, warm-hearted girl, with the better qualities of both Irish and American ancestors in her veins. Her mother had been an Owen, while on her father's side she came from a long line of the famous Virginia Fairfax family. A better combination it would be hard to imagine; and in this coming together of old and new world blood lies the wonderful strength and marvelous ingenuity of the American people. Miss Fairfax traveled withersoever her sweet will prompted, always accompanied by a spinster chaperone. Perhaps it was an accident that brought her to Dublin and the Shelbourne at the same time the English Ambassador's private agent took up his quarters there--these accidents, how often they happen, and how opportunely at times. Besides the motherly chaperone, there was another in the party, a gentleman who in physique and handsome features far outshone Roderic. Of course this was Jerome Wellington, a man of the world, belonging to a good family and now of a mind to settle down after having sown a magnificent crop of wild oats. Naturally when such a dasher thus resolves to give up his freedom, he looks around for a girl whose income will forever preclude any and all possibility of his ever being compelled to live upon his wits again. With ten millions more or less at her beck and nod, Miss Fairfax of Virginia offered grand opportunities in this line, and accordingly the Adonis who had seldom known what it was to fail had sworn a mighty oath that ere twelve moons had waxed and waned M'lle Cleo would have changed her name to the equally aristocratic one of Wellington. Then he struck a snag. He discovered that Cleo had since childhood cherished a deep and romantic fancy for Roderic Owen. They had romped together, and as years fled the stalwart young man became her hero. She blindly adored him, and being so frank and open by nature, her secret was easily read by such an acute observer as Jerome, though the object of this affection had somehow never dreamed that he was regarded in any other than a cousinly way. If Jerome had a strong point of which he was particularly proud it was his connection with divers deep and dark plots. He regarded himself in the light of a modern Machiavelli, and was never really happy unless dabbling in mysterious affairs.