He was what Aunt Elizabeth called “a very personable youth,” was this well-bred transatlantic, not very tall--say five foot nine--but well built, well groomed, well dressed, and with a pair of keen, gray-green eyes, and a sleek head of pleasingly red-brown hair. Moreover, being the only son of a many-sided father, who had added greatly to a vast inherited fortune by old-fashioned and unexceptionable means, he was of some weight in the cosmopolitan world of the day, amid which he moved at ease and with a delightful buoyancy. He had met the Setons at Villefranche a couple of seasons earlier, and, extraordinary to record, had found such favor in Aunt Elizabeth’s eyes that an invitation to shoot at Seton Park had followed. It was there that he had met and fallen in love with Laurence, to whom he had proposed. That young lady, dazzled by his wealth, his prospects, his father’s magnificent steam-yacht--anchored at the time in the Solent--and perhaps attracted also by the young man’s inexhaustible good temper and humorous aplomb, had been on the point of accepting him. Her infatuation for Neville Moray had, however, stayed her on the brink of a very desirable union. But she had, nevertheless, left him sufficient hope for the future to make the announcement of her marriage to Basil a very great surprise indeed. In spite of this he did not seem particularly broken-hearted this morning, as he sat in the full light of the windows smoking one of Sir Robert’s best smuggled cigarettes. Lady Seton had retired to put on her hat, and the two men were alone. “Have you already seen my niece?” asked Sir Robert, who (it may as well be admitted at once) could never face a situation of any awkwardness without immediately feeling called upon to put both his large, well-shaped feet through and through it. “Yes, at a distance,” Wynne replied, blowing three successive rings of blue smoke in front of him, and with such dexterity that they interlocked and floated away amiably linked to one another. “The day after my arrival I saw her driving in the Bois wrapped to the eyes in amazing sables, and behind a pair of Orloffs that made my mouth water, I assure you. Two nights later I glimpsed her at the opera wearing a diadem and triple necklace of rubies and diamonds fit for an empress. But in neither case did she appear to recognize my humble personality.” Sir Robert shook his head gloomily. “I am afraid,” he remarked, “that she is having her brain turned by the adulation with which she is surfeited. Personally, I wish she had married you instead of Prince Palitzin, although I am bound to state that he is a fine man, and has behaved toward her with the utmost generosity.” Preston Wynne half rose, put his hand on his heart, and bowed with gay appreciation of the compliment. “I am,” he pronounced, “flattered indeed that you should have been inclined to prefer me to one of Europe’s greatest personages. But, frankly, I cannot understand why you ever did such a thing.”