that, do you? But, my dear Miss Waring, sooner or later we all have to bother about choosing. Beauty and strength don't save us. Absolute honesty often lets us in, and sometimes, when the scales weigh against us, we cease to be equable."

"But they won't, you see," Stella said eagerly. "They can't weigh against her now, Lady Verny. Don't you see? There's your son—it's why one's so delighted. An engagement to him is like some thumping insurance which somehow or other prevents one's house being burned."

Lady Verny laughed.

"Let us hope your theory is a correct one," she said, rising from her seat. "I am going to talk to her now, and you can talk to the insurance company."

Stella gasped. She wanted to run away, to catch Lady Verny's graceful scarf and tell her she couldn't really talk to anybody's son. Agreeable, massive beings who explored continents and lived in clubs oughtn't to come her way. But Julian crossed the room to her side with the quickness of a military order. His manners hid his reluctance. He was at her service in a moment. His keen eyes, harder than his mother's and more metallic, met hers once and glanced easily away. They said nothing to Stella except that he was a watchful human being who couldn't be taken in, and was sometimes perhaps unduly aware that he couldn't be taken in.

"I'm very glad indeed," he said cordially, "to meet Marian's greatest friend. You must tell me all about her. You see, I'm a new-comer; I've known her only six weeks, and I've been so busy trying to impress her with my point of view that I quite feel I may have overlooked some of hers. Women always understand women, don't they?"

He wasn't going to be difficult to talk to. That unnecessary ingredient in his composition saved Stella. As long as she had a brain to call to, and wasn't only to be awed by splendor of appearance and forms as difficult for her to cross as five-barred gates, she needn't be afraid of him. It never was people that Stella was afraid of, but the things, generally the silly things, that separated her from them.

"We do and we don't understand each other," she said swiftly. "I don't think women can tell what another woman will do; but granted she's done it, I dare say most could say why."

Julian laughed.

"Then have the kindness to inform me," he said, "why Marian has consented to marry me. Incidentally, your reply will 

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