The Englishman nodded, and began his summary.

“An unswerving loyalty to his friends—­until they are guilty of lese majeste; a personal integrity which no man questions; a wit that makes him in his lighter moments a rare companion; a generosity as broad as his fighting ruthlessness is deep; and, finally, a lion-like courage.  To me, my lads, those assets seem worth a moment’s consideration.”

* * * * *

The gardens and grounds of Haverly Lodge were that night such a terrain as best suits the ambuscading warfare of the small god with the bow and darts.

Loraine Haswell was thinking something of the sort as she strolled with Paul Burton away from the dancers, leaving their destination to chance.  Kirk had hardly exaggerated when he bracketed the name of this slender and graceful wife of the gigantic broker with that of Mary Burton as the two most beautiful women in society.

They were opposite types, for while Mary was a glowing incarnation of color, rich as a golden morning in blossom-time, Loraine, with heavy masses of softly spun jet coiled above her brow, looking out from eyes that were pools of liquid darkness, might have been the queen of night.  But her mouth was a carmine blossom.  This evening she wore a gown almost barbaric in its richness of color and pattern, and when she walked ahead of Paul Burton where the path narrowed, it seemed to him that some slim and lithe Cleopatra was preceding him.  The waltz music came across the short distance, and Loraine Haswell went with a step that captured the rhythm of the measure.  When they had come to a corner of the garden where a fountain tinkled in shadow and only a lacey strand or two of moonlight fell on the grass, she halted with her outstretched arms resting lightly on the tall basin, and let her fingers dip into the clear water while she turned to smile on him.

“Do you know, Mrs. Haswell,” Paul spoke low and with a musical thrill in his voice, “you are the loveliest creature in captivity tonight?  Your loveliness is to a man’s imagination what Wilde said white hyacinths are to the soul—­worth going without bread for.”

She laughed, but into her mirth there crept, or was injected as the case may be, a note of wistfulness.

“In captivity,” she repeated, slowly.  “I am always in captivity.”

With most men Paul was diffident and prone to silence, but something in his effete nature gave him confidence with women.  He had been flattered into a sort of assurance that they found him irresistible.  They thought him clairvoyantly sympathetic—­and he was by the very over-refinement of his music and dream-fed temperament.

“The other evening when I left you, I went home and closed my eyes and sat alone—­thinking of you,” he told her.  “To me all that is fine beyond words I try to translate into music.  Where words—­even poetry—­fail, notes begin.  So at the piano I tried to express something like a portrayal of you—­to myself.”