‘Enjoy it, certainly. But bring this new man to see me.’ Kirkdale agreed, and Lady Kirkdale sent a note to her old friend John Clausen asking him to come and meet Mr. Travers. John Clausen was a man of vast experience. He had never married, and romantic people told a romantic story of an early love ending tragically in eternal fidelity. He was a walking peerage and encyclopedia; he could tell you the cast of every theatrical success, and the scandals about all the ephemeral celebrities, that have come under the notice of society, and passed thence into the darkness of the outer world during the last forty years. As Lady Maisy Potter, one of Lady Kirkdale’s married daughters, said-- ‘He is one of those charming observant people, who always listen to what you say, and notice what you wear.’ As he sat in Lady Kirkdale’s drawing-room on this particular hot June afternoon, he was both listening and observing. Lady Geraldine looked like a fair and sweet flower as she sang Gounod’s passionate love-song, _Ce que je suis sans toi_. She was a blonde, with tiny hands which melted in the touch as it were; they appeared to have no strength, no bone, they were so soft, so delicate. Yet now she was playing, you could see they were full of nervous tension; and her style had a certain vigour and distinction surprising to those who had only seen her in her idle moments. Mr. Clausen’s eyes wandered from her to the figure of George Travers: he was of light build, his face was clean shaven save for a moustache several shades lighter than his hair, his eyes were brown and rather close together, his nostrils delicate, and his chin well cut. There was a suggestion of cat-like agility about him, and good solid muscle at the corners of his mouth gave evidence that he was a man of endless resource. He stood behind Lady Geraldine, his hand resting on her brother’s shoulder. When the song was over, Travers said, ‘I should like to hear you singing to a mandolin on the lawn, down at my place at Old Windsor. Can you not persuade Lady Kirkdale to bring you down there one day? It is a charming old place, filled with quaint things I have collected from all parts of the world. I am sure it would interest you. What do you say, Stephen, will your mother and sister come with you and see me in my Arcadia?’ ‘Certainly, old fellow. I didn’t know you had a place in the country.’ ‘Oh, it is not a property, I simply lease it; but it is convenient to have a house of a certain size in which to store one’s collections. I am such a wanderer that I often forget I possess even this little _pied à terre_.’ ‘I hear you have such exquisite taste in furnishing,’ said Lady Geraldine. ‘Lord Foreshot was telling me you had superintended the decoration of his chambers in the Albany, and that they are a perfect dream.’ ‘I fear Lord Foreshot had some ulterior object in view.’ ‘I don’t understand you, Mr. Travers.’