A week later Mrs. Mynors stood before her mirror at a much earlier hour than was her wont. She was arranging her veil with a hand that shook, and eyes full of a curious mixture of anxiety and triumph. The anxiety was because she was bound upon an errand of enormous strategic importance; the triumph because her imagination ran on ahead and pictured things that she would have blushed to own. Her old lover had assented to her proposal for a meeting. He was to be this morning at twelve o'clock at the Sportswoman--that smartest and most go-ahead of county ladies' clubs in London. Virginia stood near. She held in her hand a dainty handbag, embroidered in steel beads and lined with pale violet. Into this she was putting a purse, a powder-puff, a wisp of old lace that was supposed to be a handkerchief, and so on. The aroma of the expensive perfume was over everything. Mrs. Mynors' costume was a subtle scheme of faint half-mourning. It was most becoming. "What time do you think you shall be back?" asked Virginia. "My child, how can I say? You must expect me when you see me. It depends so much upon what I accomplish. If Osbert Gaunt proves disagreeable, I must just get a bit of lunch at the club and come straight home. If he is hospitably inclined, why, you see, it might be later." "I only wanted to know how much money you are likely to spend." "Don't trouble about that, dear one. I have plenty of money for my modest needs." She stepped back, surveyed the general effect of her appearance, and sighed a little. Then, opening one of the small jewel drawers in her toilet table, she took out a ring-case, extracted the ring it contained, and slipped it upon her finger. It was a large tourmalin, set in small brilliants--a lovely blue, like the eyes of its wearer. "What a pretty ring! I never saw it before," said Virginia, with interest. She loved pretty things. That trait she had inherited from her mother. "His engagement ring," said the widow pensively. "He would not take it back. He said it would bring a curse upon any woman who wore it. He shall see that I have kept it." Virginia's heart surged up within her until she almost broke into weeping. Her own mother, the widow of Bernard Mynors, the widow of the most-beloved, the dearest, the best, the handsomest--she was setting out gaily to fascinate an old lover, wearing on her finger the ring he had bestowed in the days when she had never seen her husband. "How she can!" thought Virgie to herself. Her mother was a continual puzzle to her. In her intense simplicity the girl took her usually at her own value. She believed devoutly that it was at great personal cost that Mrs. Mynors was going to town that day. She judged her feelings by her own. And yet, and yet---- The sound of wheels on the road outside caused her to look from the window. "Why, here is an empty fly stopping at the door," said she in a tone of surprise.