door. After saying good-bye to Dale, who went down with his boyish tread, she detained me for a second or two, holding my hand, and again her clasp enveloped it like some clinging sea-plant. She looked at me very wistfully.

   "The next time you come, Mr. de Gex, do come as a friend and not as an enemy."

   I was startled. I thought I had conducted the interview with peculiar suavity.

   "An enemy, dear lady?"

   "Yes. Can't I see it?" she said in her languorous, caressing voice. "And I should love to have you for a friend. You could be such a good one. I have so few."

   "I must argue this out with you another time," said I diplomatically.

   "That's a promise," said Lola Brandt.

   "What's a promise?" asked Dale, when I joined him in the hall.

   "That I will do myself the pleasure of calling on Madame again."

   The porter whistled for a cab. A hansom drove up. As my destination was the Albany, and as I knew Dale was going home to Eccleston Square, I held out my hand.

   "Good-bye, Dale. I'll see you to-morrow."

   "But aren't you going to tell me what you think of her?" he cried in great dismay.

   The pavement was muddy, the evening dark, and a gusty wind blew the drizzle into our faces. It is only the preposterously young who expect a man to rhapsodise over somebody else's inamorata at such a moment. I turned up the fur collar of my coat.

   "She is good-looking," said I.

   "Any idiot can see that!" he burst out impatiently. "I want to know what opinion you formed of her."

   I reflected. If I could have labelled her as the Scarlet Woman, the Martyred Saint, the Jolly Bohemian, or the Bold Adventuress, my task would have been easy. But I had an uncomfortable feeling that Lola Brandt was not to be classified in so simple a fashion. I took refuge in a negative.

   "She would hardly be a success," said I, "in serious political circles."

   

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