She welcomed Spencer with that faint, intimate smile which had already stirred his pulses. "I fear I brought you bad luck," she said, in her low, caressing voice. "But to Mr Esmond I have been the harbinger of good fortune. Are you really going?" "I always go when I have won enough, or lost enough. You remember I gave you a little homily on gambling generally, not so long ago." She took her hand off Esmond's chair. "Well, I will leave my good influence behind, and look after the parting guest." She walked leisurely with him in the direction of the hall. It was deserted, but the light was brilliant, as it was in every other corner of the flat. She held out her hand impulsively. "Mr Spencer, I have not thanked you properly for your kindness to me to-night. Terror-stricken, paralysed with fear, I should have been clinging to that chair now, if you had not rescued me in time. How can I thank you?" Spencer laughed lightly. "One would think from your excessive gratitude that you had not experienced a great deal of kindness in your life. And yet that would be impossible." She flushed a little; his gaze was perhaps more full of admiration, of frank and open compliment than could be justified by the briefness of their acquaintance. And yet it only expressed what he was inwardly thinking. Here was a girl who had only to look at her mirror to learn she was endowed with singular beauty. She must also know that she combined with her more than ordinary fairness an unusual charm of manner. How had it come about that one with such striking qualifications should exhibit a certain underlying sadness, as if the world had already proved a very disappointing place? Youth and good looks usually secure for their owner a good time. Girls with half her attractions could find plenty of admirers. What evil fate dogged her that she had to regard a perfectly common act of kindness as something to be exceptionally grateful for? "I have never been petted nor spoiled, even as a child," she answered gravely. "My father and mother were ignorant of the duties, as they were of the instincts, of parenthood. And since my poor pretence of a home was broken up, I have been a derelict and a wanderer, sometimes a tolerated guest, rarely, I fear, a very welcome one in the houses of other people." "But you are happy here, surely?" he suggested. After saying so much, she could hardly regard the question as an impertinent one. He longed to hear her history. Well, if he came and cultivated her, and let her see how sympathetic he could be, one day she would tell him. She shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference.