She loved the way his hair was brushed--how different from Charlie Prodgers!--she loved the finely cut back of his head. She was perfectly aware that he showed outwardly every mark of breeding in his weak, handsome face, and lean well-drilled figure. These things pleased her--especially the breeding; it was so very far from what she ever saw at Bindon's Green! Lord Algy had the easy, pleasant manner of his kind, with a strong personal attraction, amply balancing absence of brain for general purposes, and he was versed in every art for the cajoling of women. The dinner grew more and more agreeable, until when coffee and liqueurs came, Katherine Bush felt exalted into a strange heaven. She had analysed almost all emotions in the abstract, but not their possible effects upon herself. She found the ones she was experiencing now peculiarly delightful! To be twenty-two and in love for the first time in life, with an extremely delectable specimen of manhood--to be free as air--answerable to no one--untroubled by backward or forward thoughts, unworried by tormenting speculations as to whether the affair was right or wrong--wise or unwise--This was a state of things which made the cup worth drinking, and Katherine Bush knew it. No possibility of bitter dregs to follow the last sip entered her calculations. The imp gods laughed, no doubt, and Lord Algy's blue eyes were full of passionate delight! Thus with all things _couleur de rose_, Katherine Bush began her brief honeymoon. CHAPTER II "And I shall not see you for a whole month, my precious pet!" Lord Algy whispered, as the train was approaching Charing Cross, at about eleven o'clock on the Monday night of the return journey. "I don't know how I shall bear it, but you will write every day, won't you?--Promise me, darling----I wish now that I had not taken first leave and arranged to shoot with my brother-in-law next week." His arm still encircled her, and her ashen-hued head leaned against his shoulder, so that he could not see the expression in her sombre eyes. It was that of an animal in pain. "No, I shall not write, Algy, and you must not, either--we have had a divine time, and I shall never forget it. But it is stupid to write--what good would it be to either of us?" He pleaded that he would not be able to live without a word--after the three days of perfect bliss they had enjoyed--and, of course, they would enjoy many more, when he returned from Wales--! Katherine Bush did not argue with him--of what use since her own mind was entirely made up? She just let him kiss her as much as he desired without speaking a word, and then she arranged her hat and veil, and was demurely ready to get out when the train should draw up at the platform.