"So these are the new rooms," said Molly Wycherly, patronisingly, after O'Hara and Lacy had appeared and everybody had been presented to everybody else. "Strelsa, do look at those early Edwards prints! It's utterly impossible to find any of them now for sale anywhere." Strelsa Leeds looked up at the Botticelli Madonna and at Madame Royale; and the three men looked at her as though hypnotised. So this was Reginald Leeds's wife--this distractingly pretty woman--even yet scarcely more than a girl--with her delicate colour and vivid lips and unspoiled eyes--dark eyes--a kind of purplish gray, very purely and exquisitely shaped. But in their grayish-violet depths there was murder. And the assassination of Lacy and O'Hara had already been accomplished. Her hat, gown, gloves, furs were black--as though the tragic shadow of two years ago still fell across her slender body. She looked around at the room; Molly Wycherly, pouring tea, nodded to Westguard, and he handed the cup to Mrs. Leeds. She said, smilingly: "And--do you three unprotected men live in this big house all by yourselves?" "There are four of us in the Legation," said Lacy, "and several servants to beat off the suffragettes who become enamoured of us." "The--_legation_?" she repeated, amused at the term. "Our friends call this house the Irish Legation," he explained. "We're all Irish by descent except Westguard who's a Sassenach--and Dick Quarren, who is only half Irish.' "And who is Dick Quarren?" she asked innocently. "Oh, Strelsa!" cautioned Molly Wycherly--"you really mustn't argue yourself unknown." "But I am unknown," insisted the girl, laughing and looking at the men in turn with an engaging candour that bowled them over again, one by one. "I _don't_ know who Mr. Quarren is, so why not admit it? _Is_ he such a very wonderful personage, Mr. Lacy?" "Not at all, Mrs. Leeds. He and I share the top floor of the Legation. We are, as a matter of record, the two financial wrecks of this establishment, so naturally we go to the garret. Poverty is my only distinction; Mr. Quarren, however, also leads the grand march at Lyric Hall now and then I believe----" "What is Lyric Hall? Ought I to know?" Everybody was laughing, and Molly Wycherly said: "Richard Quarren, known variously as Rix, Ricky, and Dick Quarren, is an exceedingly popular and indispensable young man in this town. You'll meet him, Strelsa, and probably adore him. We all do." "Must I wait very long?" asked Strelsa, laughing. "I'd like to have the adoration begin." Lacy said to O'Hara: "Go up and pull that pitiable dub off the bed, Roger. The lady wishes to inspect him." "That's not very civil of Rix," said Mrs. Wycherly; "but I fancy I know why he requires slumber." She added, glancing around mischievously at the three men who were all looking languishingly at Mrs. Leeds: "He'll be sorry when you three gentlemen describe Strelsa to him. I can prophesy that much."