"Those are secondary points of consideration"--sneers Keith, and his face looks hard and almost cruel now, as the flames leap up and frame it in their sudden brightness. "Old-fashioned ideas like truth and constancy, and all that." "Come, I can't have you getting cynical," says his friend good-humouredly. "You're too young, and I hate to hear young fellows like yourself railing against women. It don't seem right, somehow. What do you know of them? They're mighty queer creatures, and would puzzle the wisest man; but all the same, they're not all downright bad, and you mustn't judge the whole bale from a poor sample." Keith says nothing. His eyes go back to the fire, and a cloud darkens his brow. He knows in his own heart that he hates all women, only because he loves one--too well. CHAPTER V In the dressing-room of her Park Lane mansion a woman stands dressed for the evening. Her face is lovely, her toilet exquisite, a rain of diamonds seems to glitter about her; but there is no gladness in the eyes that gaze at their own reflection, and an unnatural gravity and sadness seem to sit on the white brow and round the soft young lips. It is the face of Lauraine--Lady Vavasour. A maid enters with a bouquet and a note, and gives them to her. "Sir Francis desired me to say he was waiting, my lady," she says respectfully. "I will be down immediately. You can take my cloak," answers her mistress. The maid leaves the room, and Laura opens the note and reads the few lines it contains. Her face does not change except to grow even sadder for a moment. Then she tears up the letter, and taking the flowers in her hand, sweeps slowly away. She moves across the richly carpeted corridor, and enters another room facing her own. It is dimly lighted, and all its draperies are pure white, and the furniture of satinwood. In one corner stands a little cot, the lace curtains looped back with pale azure ribbons. A woman rises at her entrance, and stands up respectfully. Lauraine passes her, and goes over to the little bed and looks down with eyes full of love unutterable at its inmate. A child lies there asleep. Soft, dusky rings of hair curl round the broad, white brow--the cheeks are flushed like a rose--the tiny scarlet mouth is half open--the little hands lie outside the snowy coverlet. Lauraine's face grows transfigured as she looks on that baby form; such love--such rapture--such pure, holy, exquisite joy irradiates it! She stoops down and presses her lips to the baby brow--takes one long, idolizing look at the cherubic loveliness that is her dearest earthly treasure, and then whispers some parting injunctions to the nurse and leaves the room. "How long you have been! What a deuce of a time you women do take to put your gowns on," grumbles her husband, as he meets her at the bottom of the stairs. "The horses have been standing out there in the cold for more than half an hour."