"Mona, my dear, this will never do," she said, rousing herself with an effort. "Checkmate or no checkmate, I can't have you fading away like a lovely flower. What is the use of this _Niersteiner_ if it does not make you eat? _Hörst du wohl_?" She made a heroic attempt if not a very successful one, and then proceeded to read over critically the letter she had just written. She shrugged her shoulders as she closed the envelope. "Adolescent insanity!" she exclaimed cynically. "Well, why not? Some of us are adolescent, I suppose, and most of us are insane." She put on her hat and strolled down towards Oxford Street to post the letter. It suited her mood to drop it into the letter-box with her own hands, and besides, she was rarely so depressed as not to be amused by the shop-windows. To-day, however, as she wandered aimlessly on, the gay shows in Regent Street fell upon eyes that saw not. "If I had only passed," she said, "how happy I should be!" She turned wearily homewards, and was met in the hall by the maid. "If you please, miss, two ladies called while you were out. They were in a carriage, and they left this card." Mona went up-stairs as she read it. "Lady Munro" was the name on the card; an address in Gloucester Place, Portman Square, was scrawled in the corner; and on the back in pencil-- "So sorry to miss you. You must dine with us without fail on Friday at eight. No refusal." A pleased smile crossed Mona's face. "She is spoiling the story," she said. Then the smile was chased away by a frown. "If only the story had not spoiled itself!" And then she bethought herself of the letter she had posted. CHAPTER IV. SIR DOUGLAS. When Friday evening came, Mona took a curious pleasure in making the very most of herself. She knew, as well as any outsider could have told her, that her present depression and apathy were but the measure of the passionate enthusiasm with which she had lived the life of her choice; and yet it was inevitable that for the time she should look at life wholly on the shadowed side. Past and future seemed alike gloomy and forbidding--"_Grau, grau, gleichgültig grau_"--and the eager, unconscious protest of youth against such a destiny, took the form of a resolution to enjoy to the utmost this glimpse of brightness and colour. She would forget all but the present; new surroundings should find her for the moment a new being. When she reached Gloucester Place, Lady Munro and her daughter were alone in the drawing-room. Lady Munro was one of those people who make a marked impress on their material surroundings. The rooms in which she lived quickly became, as it were, a part of herself, which her friends could not fail to recognise as such. Eastern rugs and draperies clothed the conventional London sitting-room; luxuriant, tropical-looking plants were grouped in corners, great sensuous roses lolled in Indian bowls, and a few rich quaint lamps cast a mellow glow across the twilight of the room.