"My dear girl," she said quickly, "I'm no good at cosmetics. My complexion has to take its chance, and nobody cares whether it's good or bad. But if you are specially anxious to look your best at this ball, why waste time in experiments? A few guineas more or less is nothing to you. Go to-morrow to consult the first skin specialist in London." Claudia looked at her, a long, thoughtful look. She began to speak and checked herself, subduing as it were a bidden fear. Then she nodded slowly, once and again. "I will!" she said firmly. "I will. It's folly putting it off. I'll telephone at once, and make an appointment." The examination was over. A longer and more exhaustive examination than seemed necessary for so slight a cause. The specialist stood hesitating, his face puckered in thought. Claudia smiled at him with her most dazzling smile. "You think you can make me quite better for the ball?" He looked at her swiftly, and as swiftly looked away. "That is a very short time. I am afraid I can hardly promise that." "How soon can you make me better?" "These skin troubles are sometimes lengthy affairs. It will be necessary for you to have a course of treatment. I should like to see Mr--er--your husband, and talk the matter over with him." But at that Claudia swept forward with a commanding air. "It is impossible! I forbid it! He does not know that I am here to-day. He must not know! If there is anything to be done, I must do it without his knowledge! I cannot tell him. I dare not tell him: What is it that is wrong with my face? It is only a little rash. _Why do you look at me like that_? For God's sake say that it won't take long, that it won't get worse; that I shall be able to--_to hide_ it from him; to keep my beauty! _What is the matter_? Why don't you speak? You must tell me. If you know! Whatever it is I _must_ bear it alone! I daren't tell him--he must never know!" The great doctor turned away his face. His lips moved, once and again, before at last the dread word echoed through the room: "_Lupus_!" CHAPTER THREE. THE GIRL WHO WISHED FOR ADVENTURE. The girl who had wished for adventure journeyed back to her native village two days after the New Year's party, and spent the following eighteen months in tramping monotonously along a well-worn rut. The only difference made by that oft-remembered conference was in her point of view. Before that date she had sighed for the unattainable; after it, the unattainable became the possible. Some day, if she but waited, opportunity would come; some day the end of a thread would float downward towards her hand, and grasping it, she would be led into a new world! To the best of her power, she cultivated this attitude, and each monotonous month, as it dragged past, added strength to her determination to snatch the first opportunity that came her way.