The masculinity of the powerful face was emphasized by the gray hair, cut close in an Eton crop, and the rimless monocle which never left her eye. Between her white teeth she gripped a long amber holder in which a cigarette was burning. Her speech was direct, abrupt, almost shocking in its frankness. “Greta?” She jerked the end of the cigarette holder toward the door. “Being fussed over by Druze. That woman would ogle a dustman! She’s that age. It is a horrible thing to have been pretty once and to have produced certain reactions. You can never believe that the spirit has evaporated.” Jane Raytham smiled. “They say you were an awfully pretty girl, Nita----” she began. “They lie,” said Princess Anita calmly. “Russell’s used to retouch my photographs till there was nothing left but the background.” Greta floated in, hands outstretched, her big red mouth opened ecstatically. “Darling!” she burst forth, and caught both Jane’s hands in hers. Anita Bellini’s fleshy nose wrinkled in a sneer. And yet she should have grown accustomed to Mrs. Gurden, for ecstasy was Greta’s normal condition. She had that habit of touching people, holding them by the arms, stooping to look up into their faces with her big black eyes that sometimes squinted a little. She had been pretty, but now her face was long and a little haggard, the face of a woman who was so afraid of missing something that she could not spare the time to sleep. Her lips were heavily carmined, her eyes carefully made up as though she were still expecting a call to return to the chorus from which Anita had rescued her. “My lovely Jane! Exquisite as usual. That dress--don’t tell me! Chenel--isn’t it?” “Is it?” Jane Raytham scarcely looked down. “No, I think it is a dress I bought in New York last year.” Greta shook her head speechlessly. Anita Bellini blew out a smoke ring and tapped off the ash in the fireplace. “Greta lays it on thick when she lays it at all,” she said, and cast a critical eye over her hostess. “You’re peaky, Jane. Missing your husband?” “Terribly.” The irony of tone was not lost on Anita. “Raytham--what is he doing? The man is ill of money and yet won’t take a day off making it. Where the---- Oh, here he is.” Druze wheeled in the tea wagon. “Give me a whisky-and-soda, Druze, or I’ll perish!” She drank the contents of the goblet at a gulp and handed back the glass. She fixed her monocle more firmly and lit another cigarette. The door closed behind the butler. “Druze wears well, Jane. Where did you get him?” Lady Raytham looked up quickly. “Does he? I scarcely notice him. He has always been the same as long as I can remember. He was with Lord Everreed before.” “That goes back a few years. I remember him when he was a young man.” The princess had an unhappy habit of smiling with her mouth closed. It was not very pretty. “It is funny how age comes: thirty to fifty goes like a flash of lightning!”