He was sitting on the grass at Lady Lochore’s feet; his long legs in the last cut of trousers strapped over positively the latest boots. The slimness of his waist, the juvenility of his manner, the black curls that hung luxuriantly over his clean-shaven face, all this conspired to give Mr. Villars quite an illusive air of youth, even from a very short distance. Only a close examination revealed the lines on the rouged cheek and the wrinkled fall of chin that the highest and finest stock could not quite conceal. The latest pedigree gave the year of his birth as some lost fifty years ago—it also described the lady who had presided at that event as belonging to the illustrious Castillian house of Lara. But ill-natured friends persisted, averred that this lady had belonged to no more foreign regions than the Minories, and thus they accounted for Tom’s black ringlets, for his bold arch of nose, for his slightly thick consonants and his unconquerable fondness for personal jewellery. Mr. Villars was, however, almost universally accepted by society: his knowledge of the share market was only second to his astounding acquaintance with everyone’s exact financial situation. “Deyvil take my soul!” he insisted. Tom Villars was fond of an oath as of a fine genteel habit. “I defy even the Devil to do that,” said Lady Lochore, stopping the languidly pettish flap of her fan to shoot an angry look at him over its edge. “Why so, fairest Queen of the Roses?” “Tom Villars sold his soul to the Devil long ago,” put in Colonel Harcourt. “It is no longer an asset.” Frankly fifty, with a handsome ruddy face under a sweep of grey hair that almost gave the impression of the forgotten becomingness of the powdered peruke, Colonel Harcourt, of the Grenadiers, erect, broad-chested, pleasantly swaggering, good humoured and yet haughty, proclaimed the guardsman to the first glance, even in his easy country garb. “Sold his soul to the Devil?” echoed Luke Herrick, lifting his handsome young face from the daisies he was piling in pretty Priscilla Geary’s pink silk lap. “Sold his soul, did he? Uncommon bargain for Beelzebub and Co.! I thought the firm did better business.” “You are quite wrong,” said Lady Lochore, looking down with disfavour upon the countenance of her victim, who feigned excessive enjoyment of the ambient wit and humour. “The Devil cannot take Tom Villars’ soul, nor could Tom Villars sell it to the Devil, for the very good reason that Tom Villars never had a soul to be disposed of.” A shout of laughter went round the glowing idle group. “Cruel, cruel, lady mine!” murmured the oriental Villars, striving to throw a fire of pleading devotion into his close-set shallow eyes as he looked up at Lady Lochore and at the same time to turn a dignified deaf ear upon his less important tormentors. “In how have I offended that you thus make a pincushion of my heart?”