"I'll grow it again here."

"Have you brought a maid?"

"No. I want to engage a London woman."

"Come and sit down. It is so strange for us to be together again. How many years is it since we were schoolgirls in Paris, getting education instead of gowns? And now——"

"You're a little widow, and the darling of London!"

"And you——By the way, how is Mr. Van Adam?"

"I am told he is quite well."

Mrs. Verulam raised her eyebrows.

"You are told, Chloe!" she said. "You are told!"

But Mrs. Van Adam was looking about the room with eager dark eyes.

"Your house is delicious!" she exclaimed. "I shall love to be here. Florida is lonely, and New York is—well, it has no aristocracy. And a capital without an aristocracy is like a town man without a silk hat. The toilet is incomplete. It was cool of me to cable you that I was coming. But you don't mind?"

"I am delighted. I have been wanting you to come for so long."

[Pg 16]

[Pg 16]

"And the season is just beginning?"

The weariness that had died in Mrs. Verulam's eyes sprang up in them again.

"Yes," she said; "it is just beginning."

Mrs. Van Adam made an ecstatic gesture. There was in her manner something of the vivacity of a colt: a frolicsome readiness for bodily movement, a quickness of limb that goes with gaiety, and a sweeping appreciation of the luxury of joy. Her eyes danced and brimmed over with light, and expectation of pleasure turned her appearance almost to that of a child who sees a vision of sugar-plums.

"That's lucky!" she cried. "Daisy, you don't 

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