For Hal, it was enough that the past mistake seemed genuinely regretted and wiped out, and that all his manner to her now held deference and respect. And she was intensely glad—almost alarmingly glad, if she had stopped to consider; only that would have cast a shadow on the sunshine; and she preferred to take the sunshine while it offered, and leave the future to take care of itself. And in the meantime there was Lorraine’s dinner-party, instead of a lonely evening, and once more she dressed herself with care and skill; and later stood up straight and slim in Lorraine’s pretty drawing-room, radiating happiness, and surprising even old friends with her good looks. Alymer Hermon remarked it first. He was standing beside her on the hearth, and he looked down from his great height with laughing, quizzical eyes and said: “You’re looking astonishingly pretty tonight. Have you been consulting a beauty specialist?” Dick Bruce and Quin laughed delightedly. “Why, of course!” cried Dick, digging his hands deep into his pockets, and giving himself a little gleeful shake, “I’ve been puzzling my head to grasp what it was. I’d forgotten all about the beauty specialists. It must have cost an awful lot, Hal.” “It did,” she told them; “but you’ve no idea how clever they are. They can renovate the most hopeless faces. I’m sure you’d all find it worth while running to the expense.” “Now, come Hal,” objected Quin laughingly. “We can’t have the ornament of our flat insulted like that. The rising barrister needs no beauty specialist, you must admit.” Hal looked up at the giant with twitching lips. “I was going to suggest a brain specialist for him. It won’t be much use getting lots of briefs because he looks nice in his wig and gown if he hasn’t the brains to win his cases.” Hermon caught her by the shoulders to shake her, and at that moment Lord Denton quietly entered the room. Lorraine had met him in the hall, while hastening across for something she had forgotten, and told him to go in, so that he entered unannounced, and saw the group before they knew of his presence. Especially he seemed to see the two on the hearthrug. Hal, with her shining eyes, rising coulour, and laughing lips, and Hermon with a sort of answering glow in his face, boyishly gripping her shoulders as if to shake her. He stood and looked at them a moment without speaking, then Hal espied him, and thinking he had that instant entered, exclaimed: “Help!... Help!... Lord Denton, I am caught in the clutches of Leviathan.” He came forward smillingly. “Leviathan does not look as if he meant to eat you; and even if he did, I don’t believe my courage would run to closing with six-foot-five-and-a-half.” “Awful, isn’t it?” she said, releasing herself and giving him her hand. “He is like those lanky pieces of corn which are all stalk and no head. Have you seen him before?”