Miss Van Tuyn.

"Very much, and understood it very well."

"Oh--that! She understands everything, doesn't she, Sir Seymour?"

"Perhaps we ought to except mathematics and military tactics," he replied, with a glance at Lady Sellingworth half humorous, half affectionate. "But certainly everything connected with the art of living is her possession."

"And--the art of dying?" Lady Sellingworth said, with a lightly mocking sound in her voice.

Miss Van Tuyn opened her violet eyes very wide.

"But is there an art of dying? Living--yes; for that is being and is continuous. But dying is ceasing."

"And there is an art of ceasing, Beryl. Some day you may know that."

"Well, but even very old people are always planning for the future on earth. No one expects to cease. Isn't it so, Mr. Craven?"

She turned to him, and he agreed with her and instanced a certain old duchess who, at the age of eighty, was preparing for a tour round the world when influenza stepped in and carried her off, to the great vexation of Thomas Cook and Son.

"We must remember that that duchess was an American," observed Sir Seymour.

"You mean that we Americans are more determined not to cease than you English?" she asked. "That we are very persistent?"

"Don't you think so?"

"Perhaps we are."

She turned and laid a hand gently, almost caressingly, on Lady Sellingworth's.

"I shall persist until I get you over to Paris," she said. "I do want you to see my apartment, and my bronzes--particularly my bronzes. When were you last in Paris?"

"Passing through or staying--do you mean?"

"Staying."

Lady Sellingworth was silent for an instant, and Craven saw the half sad, half mocking expression in her eyes.

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