Shawe was slim and dark-complexioned, with a clear-cut, classical face, eminently suited, with its steady grey eyes and firm lips, to his profession. He was handsome in a severe way, and rarely smiled, perhaps because he saw too persistently and too closely the seamy side of life with which the law has to deal. Only a glance from Audrey could soften his granite looks, and her mere presence changed him into a more companionable being. He loved her more than he did his profession--and that is saying a great deal, for he was ambitious, and had visions of the Woolsack. Many said that he might attain even to that high altitude, as he was admitted on all hands to be brilliantly clever. But just now, while playing in Cupid's garden, he looked and acted like a young man of the ordinary type, because love, which is common to all, had ousted for the moment that genius which is given to few. So he sighed and she sighed, and she looked and he looked; their hands thrilled when in contact, and the birds overhead sang the songs of their hearts, which, being limited by speech, they could not utter. In this manner did they dwell in Arcady and recall one hour of the Golden Age, when gods wooed mortal maids. "But it's all very well," said Audrey, withdrawing her hand, and breathing a final sigh of silent delight, "time is pressing, and I have to call at Madame Coralie's before I go home." "Who is Madame Coralie?" asked Shawe, also sighing, as he awakened to the fact that the work-a-day world had need of him. Audrey laughed. "No mere man can understand who Madame Coralie is, or what she is. But if you will walk with me to Walpole Lane I can show you her shop--not that the shop will explain." "What kind of goods does she sell?" asked the young barrister, lazily, and admiring the profile of his beloved. "She sells figures and complexions and false hair and lip-salve, and--" "Stop! Stop! You surely don't want any of those beastly things?" "Not yet," said Audrey, significantly; "but I may some day. It is mamma who wants them just now. She has no figure, poor dear, and her complexion is like a frog's skin. I am going to call and ask how she passed the night, and I take you because we have no secrets from one another." "Is Lady Branwin's presence at this shop a secret?" "Of course. Mamma wants to be made young and beautiful, so she goes secretly to Madame Coralie. A woman doesn't advertise her need of restoration." "But I don't quite understand what sort of shop this Madame Coralie keeps?" said Ralph, looking puzzled and contracting his dark brows. "It's a beauty-factory," explained Audrey, hugging her knees; "women like mamma go there to regain whatever looks they may have had. I shall go also some day, when I am old and scraggy." "Never, if you are my wife, dear. I want to see you grow old gracefully." "I don't want to grow old at all; no woman ever does, you stupid thing. As to becoming your wife, I never may be. You know that."