He held up a warning finger. "It occurred a year ago. We lived together for six weeks. Then we compromised. I gave her my house in Park Lane and returned myself to Bruton Street. Pish! man, don't look so shocked. Helen and I are friends--I see her once a week now at least, sometimes more often. I assure you I enjoy her conversation. She has a natural genius for gossip and uses all her opportunities. She has already become a fixed star in the firmament of society's smartest set and aspires to found a new solar system. I allow her fifteen thousand pounds a year. She spends twenty. My compensation is that I am never at a loss for a subject of reflection. We shall call on her this afternoon. A devil, but diverting. You will be amused." "Do I know her, Hubbard?" "No; you are merely acquainted. Her maiden name was Arbuthnot." "Lady Helen Arbuthnot!" I cried. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You will find her changed. Marriage has developed her. I remember before you went away--was it to Egypt?--she tried her blandishments on you. But then she was a mere apprentice. Heaven help you now--if she marks you for her victim." "Poor wretch!" I commented. "I suppose you can't help it. But you ought to make an effort, Hubbard, really." "An effort. What for?" "To conceal how crudely in love with your wife you are." He bit his lips and frowned. "Children and fools speak the truth," he murmured. Then he set to work on the champagne and drank much more than was good for him. The wine, however, only affected his appearance. It brought a flush to his pallid cheeks and made his dull eyes sparkle. He deluged me with politics till three o'clock. Then we drove to Park Lane. Lady Helen kept us waiting for twenty minutes. In the meantime, two other callers joined us. Men. In order to show himself at home Hubbard smoked a cigarette. The men looked pensively appalled. They were poets. They wore long hair and exotic gardens in their buttonholes. And they rolled their eyes. They must have been poets. Also they carried bouquets. Certainly they were poets. When Lady Helen entered they surged up to her, uttering little artistic foreign cries. And they kissed her hand. She gave their bouquets to the footman with an air of fascinating disdain. Their dejection was delightful. But she consoled them with a smile and advanced to us. Certainly she had changed. I had known her as a somewhat unconventional and piquant débutante. She was now a brilliant siren, an accomplished coquette and a woman of the world. Her tiny stature made her attractive, for she was perfectly proportioned and her costume ravishingly emphasised the petite and dainty grace of her figure. Her face was reminiscent of one of those wild flowers of torrid regions which resemble nothing grown in an English garden, but which, nevertheless, arrest attention and charm by their bizarrerie. It was full of eerie wisdom, subtle wilfulness and quaint, half-humorous diablerie. In one word, she was a sprite.