addressed 'Mrs. Rufus'?—Mr. Devereux has got a sister of that name."

Lord Algy laughed.

"Well, you see, I could not have it 'Fitz-Rufus,' because every one knows that is the Merioneth name, given us poor devils by the Normans, because we were such a red-headed lot, and I bet they found our own too difficult to pronounce!" He began pulling out the coat and a soft pink silk dressing-gown from the box. "I always am just 'Rufus' when I come out like this." He laughed again a little constrainedly; it had just struck him that the latter part of his sentence was perhaps not very felicitously expressed—since he knew Katherine Bush was no chorus lady, accustomed to temporary wedded appellations!

She looked him straight in the eyes with her strange,[Pg 9] disconcertingly steady grey-green ones—and then she smiled again—as the Sphinx might have done before being set in eternal immobility of stone.

[Pg 9]

Lord Algy felt stupidly uncomfortable, so he folded her in his arms with a fond caress, a far better plan he had always found than any argument or explanation with women.

Katherine Bush realised the joy of it. She was ready for every grade of pleasure as well as experience. This was how things were done in Lord Algy's world, then—So be it.

Together they looked at the coat and wrap, and he helped her to take off her hat and jacket, and try them on. They were very friendly, and Lord Algy suggested that as the dressing-gown was almost a teagown and was fairly pretty, she might wear it for dinner, which they would have in the sitting-room.

"You'll look sweet in pink, darling," he lisped, as he kissed her ear, "and it will be so soft and cosy."

Then the waiter knocked at the door and said the chocolate was ready, so they went back to the sitting room.

He was quite adorable as he assisted her to pour in the cream—but Katherine Bush now decided she would keep him at arm's length for a while; the game was really so entertaining, and its moves must be made to last as long as possible.

Lord Algy enjoyed fencing, too, so they talked in a more matter-of-fact way for an hour or more, and then she told him she would go and change for dinner, as it would be ready in twenty minutes.

"I'll have to be 

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