"You handsome dog!" I heard her say. "What have you been doing to Alice? She's gone clean off her head--threatens to leave her husband, and is drinking like a fish!" "I haven't done anything," Will began, but at that moment our hostess saw me and nudged Will, who joined me and we entered the drawing-room. I felt Will's questioning eyes on my face, but I did not look at him; instead, I gave my hand rather impulsively to my sculptor friend who was standing alone, and I did not notice the returning pressure until my wedding ring cut into the flesh, and made me wince. I was wondering who "Alice" could be and what Will had to do with her. Our hostess's "friend" was present. He was a middle-aged man with a ruddy complexion, iron gray hair and a closely cropped moustache. I had once seen him at the Horse Show in one of the boxes, and he had been pointed out to me as a prominent railroad man. He greeted Will noisily. "Hello, Hartley," he yelled, "you're late on your cue. I suppose you wanted to make an effective entrance!" At the table I sat next to the sculptor; on my other hand was a dentist who had leaped into fame by having been expelled from a certain European country where he had set up a successful practice. A _liaison_ with the wife of a man close to the throne had led to his downfall, and he had returned to his native land to be received with open arms by the set in which we were now travelling. He had a face such as I imagined Molière conceived for his Tartuffe; his voice was caressing and made me sleepy. Opposite me sat a well-known star. He was famous for his magnetism. Although I could not discern it, there must have existed something of the sort, for every leading woman who engaged with him, sooner or later, succumbed to his charm. I myself knew of one girl whose life was almost ruined when he took up with another woman who had joined his Company to play a special engagement. This girl was one of the prettiest I ever saw; she was "chaperoned" by a complaisant mother. This irresistible gentleman was married, but his wife refused to live with him and made her home abroad. For the sake of the children she refused to divorce him.