In the evening, the Rooms were crowded. Blagdon played again, but was out of luck, and also a little out of humour. He had seen the Countess of Boncaster stare fixedly at his sister, and cut her dead. Connie had too much rouge on; she looked dishevelled and excited, and was gambling recklessly--yet it was only the other day that he had squared up her betting book, and she had sworn to economise and reform. Wandering through the rooms, in a doorway he suddenly encountered Mrs. Corbett and the gigantic Grand Duke; he was about to halt, but amazing to relate, the lady glanced over his head with cold, unseeing eyes, and so passed on. He paused transfixed, and stared after the pair. Lola was chattering French, and gazing up at the great hulking Tartar, with her most alluring expression. How well he knew it! He watched them as they circled a table, and melted away into the crowd. The burly Russian, and his graceful companion, who was actually wearing diamonds that he, Blagdon, had paid for--yes, and the very gown on her back! As he stood motionless and bewildered, for once experiencing the sting of smarting vanity, and dwelling on the late decisive incident, the Baron accosted him, with a scared white face. “I have been looking for you all over the shop,” he began. “I say, old chap, I’m cleared out. Can you let me have a couple of _mille_ notes, just to go on with? I’ll pay you back of course.” “I have only one left,” rejoined Blagdon in a sulky voice, as he reluctantly produced and handed over a note, then before the Baron could thank him he had turned away, and abandoned the Casino for the cool, moonlit gardens. Here he lit a cigar, sat down alone under a clump of Bamboos, and said to himself, he was going to have a good solid think. Blagdon had inherited a certain amount of his father’s shrewdness, and this on rare occasions struggled to the surface, and he beheld his associates by the light of common sense. Connie and her racing debts; the penniless Baron and his borrowings; Lola, her bills and jewellery--a greedy pack, all for themselves! If he were a pauper, not one of them would come near him. Then a beautiful innocent face rose before his mental vision. What a contrast to the painted, powdered, artificial women of his acquaintance! _She_ was the genuine article: her lovely hair and complexion were her own. And yet he was not in love with her, but with an idea, that if he were to marry Letty Glyn, his wife, as Roland said, would be one of the most beautiful women in England. Wherever she was seen, she would make a tremendous sensation. At the Ball, and at the Bonhams’ how she had eclipsed everyone. The resolve sprang up suddenly in his mind, Miss Glyn was the right sort of wife for him. He was a man who desired to possess the best of everything--chiefly in order to excite the envy of others--and as he sat smoking and musing, the image of Letty gathered shape and distinctness. Finally he rose, threw the stump of his cigar among the