Sir Donald rose and bowed. Mrs. Wolfstein murmured a word to him in passing, and they had not been sipping their coffee for more than two or three minutes before he joined them with his son. Sir Donald came up at once to Lady Holme. “May I present my son to you, Lady Holme?” he said. “Certainly.” “Leo, I wish to introduce you to Lady Holme.” Leo Ulford bowed rather ungracefully. Standing up he looked more than ever like a huge boy, and he had much of the expression that is often characteristic of huge boys--an expression in which impudence seems to float forward from a background of surliness. Lady Holme said nothing. Leo Ulford sat down beside her in an armchair. “Better weather,” he remarked. Then he called a waiter, and said to him, in a hectoring voice: “Bring me a Kummel and make haste about it.” He lit a cigarette that was almost as big as a cigar, and turned again to Lady Holme. “I’ve been in the Sahara gazelle shooting,” he continued. He spoke in a rather thick, lumbering voice and very loud, probably because he was married to a deaf woman. “Just come back,” he added. “Oh!” said Lady Holme. She was sitting perfectly upright on her chair, and noticed that her companion’s eyes travelled calmly and critically over her figure with an unveiled deliberation that was exceptionally brazen even in a modern London man. Lady Holme did not mind it. Indeed, she rather liked it. She knew at once, by that look, the type of man with whom she had to deal. In Leo Ulford there was something of Lord Holme, as in Pimpernel Schley there was perhaps a touch of herself. Having finished his stare, Leo Ulford continued: “Jolly out there. No rot. Do as you like and no one to bother you. Gazelle are awfully shy beasts though.” “They must have suited you,” said Lady Holme, very gravely. “Why?” he asked, taking the glass of Kummel which the waiter had brought and setting it down on a table by him. “Aren’t you a shy--er--beast?” He stared at her calmly for a moment, and then said: “I say, you’re too sharp, Lady Holme.” He turned his head towards Pimpernel Schley, who was sitting a little way off with her soft, white chin tucked well in, looking steadily down into a cup half full of Turkish coffee and speaking to nobody. “Who’s that girl?” he asked. “That’s Miss Pimpernel Schley. A pretty name, isn’t it?” “Is it? An American of course.” “Of course.” “What cheek they have? What’s she do?” “I believe she acts in--well, a certain sort of plays.” A slow smile overspread Leo Ulford’s face and made him look more like a huge boy than ever. “What certain sort?” he asked. “The sort I’d like?” “Very probably. But I know nothing of your tastes.” She did--everything almost. There are a good many Leo Ulfords lounging about London. “I like anything that’s a bit lively, with no puritanic humbug about it.” “Well, you surely can’t suppose that there can be any puritanic humbug about Miss Schley or anything she has to do with!”