“Yes,” she answered softly, “I remember.”

“We didn’t anticipate this.”  He looked around.  “Don’t judge me altogether by my surroundings.  To tell you the truth, when I started I went too much to the other extreme.  I discovered I had made a mistake, so I sold up and found myself in debt.  I am earning plenty of money, but I have to economise to get clear.  This novel is going to set me straight.”

He took some loose pages up in his hand.  She looked over his shoulder.

“You haven’t improved a bit in your writing,” she exclaimed.  “Do let me type it for you.”

“You shall, with pleasure,” he answered.  “I believe you’re the only person who could read it.”

She laughed and took her coffee from him.

“Please light a cigarette,” she begged.  “I loathe the taste, but the perfume is delightful.”

He obeyed her, and she arranged the lamp so that the light fell upon the sheets which he had gathered up into his hand.  Then she leaned back in her chair and listened.

* * * * *

“Well?”

She sat up and faced him, her face flushed with excitement, her eyes flashing soft fires.

“There is nothing I can say beyond this,” she cried:  “it is the sort of book which I always hoped and believed that one day you would write.”

“You like it?”

“Like is no word.  It is magnificent.”

He laughed at her.

“If all my critics were like you.”

She sighed.

“I am only afraid of one thing,” she said.  “When it is finished and published you will be a great man.  You will be so far off.  I think I wish that it were not quite so clever.  It makes me feel lonely.”

He came over and sat upon the arm of her chair.  She was very sweet, very dainty, very pretty.

“Cissy,” he said, “you need never be afraid of that.  Whatever might happen in the future, I shall never enjoy an evening more than this one.  It rests with you to say whether we may not have many more.”

“With me?”

She looked up at him quickly.  From where he sat he could see her bosom rising and falling quickly.  Then he started suddenly away—­Cicely sat up in terror, grasping the sides of her chair.  There was a sharp knock at the closed door.

“Is Mr. Jesson in?” a soft voice asked.

“Who is it?” Douglas cried, in blank amazement.

The door opened, and a woman, in a long opera cloak and rustling skirt gathered up in her hands, glided in.  It was the Countess de Reuss.

* * * * *

She stood in a little halo of lamplight, a diamond star flashing in her hair, and her neck ablaze with gems.  She was dressed to make her bow presently in the presence of Royalty, her dress decollete, her figure superb, her jewels famous throughout the world.  Cicely looked at her and gasped—­Douglas was speechless.  She herself maintained a magnificent composure, although she had, as a matter of fact, received a shock.