She hesitated a moment. “I didn’t ask just to hurt you. I expect Mrs. Fawcette here this afternoon, later on. It was at her house that I took Margaret to luncheon that wretched day, you remember. And I did not know whether you would rather see her again and perhaps question her further, or go away before she comes. She went away, you remember, soon after that, on one of her globe-trotting jaunts or something. And I thought, perhaps——” “Oh, I don’t mind seeing her again, if that’s what you mean,” I answered, though I had never even thought of questioning Mrs. Fawcette very closely, except to verify the fact that Margaret had left with Mrs. Furneau a little after five. And I realized at that moment that perhaps I had been careless there. “But as for questioning her again,” I added, “what’s the use?” Helen Furneau shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I thought I’d tell you, anyway.” “I appreciate that,” I told her. “She’s a queer woman,” Mrs. Furneau went on. “She used to be ultra-conservative, before her husband died. But since she’s been wandering around the globe, with nothing in particular to occupy her, she’s taken on a crowd that even I would call queer. And I don’t believe anybody ever accused me of conservatism.” She laughed whimsically. Naturally I pricked up my ears at that, though I don’t think I showed it. Anyway, I turned the conversation back to my charming hostess a moment later. Presently the guests began to arrive. They were the usual mixed lot of artists and professionals, with a rich sprinkling of foreigners, for whom Helen Furneau had a particular _penchant_. I was deep in cynical platitudes with a round-bodied and rat-eyed little cubist who looked as if he needed scrubbing, when Helen called my name. She stood at my elbow and, turning, I found myself facing the loveliest girl I had ever seen. She was dressed in gray—clinging, filmy stuff—with a big gray floppy hat. I took that much in before Mrs. Furneau completed the introduction. Then the girl’s big gray eyes met mine gravely, lingered a moment taking me in, and fell away from mine with just a hint of shyness. She was obviously quite young and obviously out of place in that _galère_. I was introduced in turn to her aunt, a fussy and voluble person, by all external signs; of the kind that rushes in and so forth. That over, I turned to the girl again with an inward sigh of relief. If I must talk to rat-eyed cubists for the sake of my search, there could be no harm in a few moments off duty in such obviously wholesome company. During my introduction to her aunt, Miss Van Cleef had stood close to our hostess, and while I made the remark or two to her aunt which convention required, the girl was talking to Mrs. Furneau. She was speaking as I joined them. “. . . most wonderful stuff I ever tasted. You must go and get them to give you some. They _were_ funny people, though. I don’t believe I like them very——”