Lonsdale retired with a shrug, and a day or two later Lord Clarehaven's departure for Mombasa was duly recorded in the _Morning Post_. Dorothy's self-importance had been so deeply wounded by the manner in which Lonsdale had commented upon her position in the world that for some time she could scarcely bear to meet people, and she even came near to relinquishing the publicity of the stage, because she began to feel that the nightly audience was sneering at her discomfiture. The gift of a set of Russian sables from Hausberg and the news that her investments were prospering failed to rouse her from the indifference with which she was regarding life. All that had seemed so rich in the flat now merely oppressed her with a sense of useless display. The continual assurances she received that only the melodious trio had saved "The Duke and the Dairymaid" from being something like a failure gave her no elation. Her silks and sables were no more to her than rags; her crystal flasks of perfumes, and those odorous bath-salts, in which the lemon and the violet blended so exquisitely the sharp with the sweet, had lost their savor; even her new manicure set of ivory-and-gold did not pass the unprofitable hours so pleasantly as that old ebony set of which she had been so proud in West Kensington, it seemed a century ago. Lonsdale by his attitude had made her feel that the luxury of her surroundings was not the natural expression of a personality predestined to find in rank its fit expression, but merely the stock-in-trade of a costly doll. It was Tufton who provided Dorothy with a new elixir of life that was worth all the scent in Bond Street, and a restorative that made the most pungent toilet vinegar insipid as water. "I don't think you ought to take it so badly," he said. "Shooting the rhino for the sake of a woman is better than throwing the other kind of rhino at her head. It shows that he's pretty badly hit." "The rhino?" asked Dorothy, with a pale smile. "No, no," protested Tufton, shocked at carrying a joke too far. "Clarehaven. Wait till he comes back. If he comes back as much in love as he went away you'll hear nothing more about flats round the corner. Curzon Street is also round the corner, don't forget, and my belief is that you'll move straight in from here." "You're a good pal, Harry." "Well, I don't think my worst enemy has ever accused me of not sticking to my friends." This was true; but then Mr. Tufton did not make friends lightly. Old walls afford a better foothold to the climber than new ones. When Dorothy pondered these words of encouragement she cheered up; and that night John Richards, who had watched her performance from the stage-box, told his sleeping partner that he intended to bring her along in the next Vanity production. "She gets there," he boomed. "Goo' gir'! Goo' gir'!" V