She was toying with a strawberry ice, and her lowered eyelids displayed the extraordinary length of their lashes. Certainly I was talking to an interesting and very lovely woman—though again here, as before in the hunting field in Berkshire, I found myself wondering in what her beauty consisted. Not a feature was regular; the freckles on nose and forehead seemed to show more plainly under the glare of the electric lights; the eyes were red-brown. But how large they were, and how they seemed to sparkle with intelligence! She looked up suddenly. Her expression was serious now. Up to the present her eyes, while she talked, had been singularly animated, often full of laughter. "Mr. Berrington, have you ever been in love?" I was so surprised at this question, from a woman to whom I was practically a stranger, that I thought it best to treat it as a jest. "Yes, a dozen times," I answered. "I am in love at this moment," I added lightly, as if joking. "You need not have told me that," she said, serious still. "I knew it the moment I saw you both together. I asked—but only to hear what you would say." "But—but—" I stammered, "I—you—that is I don't quite catch your meaning. When did you see 'us' both together—and who is the other person you are thinking of?" She had finished her ice. "Please give me some more champagne," she said. I picked up the half-empty bottle, refilled her glass, then my own. She held out her glass until it clinked against mine. "Here is health and long life to your friend on the chestnut," she exclaimed, smiling again, "and to you too. I only hope that your married life will be happier than—" She checked herself. Her tongue had run away with her, and, as our lips touched our glasses, I mentally finished her sentence. But who, I wondered, had her husband been? People were still flocking into the room. Others were moving out. From a distance there came to us above the noise and the buzz of conversation the words of a song I love: "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix Comme s'ouvre les fleurs Aux baisers de l'aurore, Mais O! Mon bien aime Pour mieux secher mes pleurs Que ta voix parle encore, Dis moi qu'a Dalila Tu reviens pour jamais. Redis a ma tendresse Les serments d'autrefois Les serments que j'aimais. Ah, reponds a ma tendresse, Ah, verse-moi l'ivresse!" "How gorgeous!" I exclaimed, straining my ears in a vain attempt to hear better. "Who is it?" "Kirkby-Lunn," my companion answered quickly. "Are you fond—" She stopped. Her face was partly turned. I saw a glance of recognition flash into her eyes and vanish instantly. Following the direction of her glance, my gaze rested upon the strange, striking woman I had seen but once but could not possibly forget. Mrs. Gastrell had just entered, and with her, to my astonishment, Jack Osborne. It was Jasmine Gastrell with whom my companion had exchanged that momentary glance of recognition.