“What have you been doing?” she asked, after a moment.  “I thought I was quite forgotten.”  She moved across to the couch, picked up the kitten, and kissed it.  “Isn’t this sweet?” she added.

She looked very graceful as she turned, holding the little animal up.  She was a woman of twenty-seven, but she looked a girl.  The outline of her face was pure, the pale gold of her hair almost ethereal, and her tall, slight figure still suggested the suppleness, the possibility of future development, that belongs to youth.  She wore a lace-colored gown that harmonized with the room and with the delicacy of her skin.

“Now sit down and rest—­or walk about the room.  I sha’n’t mind which.”  She nestled into the couch and picked up the crystal ball.

“What is the toy for?” Chilcote looked at her from the mantel-piece, against which he was resting.  He had never defined the precise attraction that Lillian Astrupp held for him.  Her shallowness soothed him; her inconsequent egotism helped him to forget himself.  She never asked him how he was, she never expected impossibilities.  She let him come and go and act as he pleased, never demanding reasons.  Like the kitten, she was charming and graceful and easily amused; it was possible that, also like the kitten, she could scratch and be spiteful on occasion, but that did not weigh with him.  He sometimes expressed a vague envy of the late Lord Astrupp; but, even had circumstances permitted, it is doubtful whether he would have chosen to be his successor.  Lillian as a friend was delightful, but Lillian as a wife would have been a different consideration.

“What is the toy for?” he asked again.

She looked up slowly.  “How cruel of you, Jack!  It is my very latest hobby.”

It was part of her attraction that she was never without a craze.  Each new one was as fleeting as the last, but to each she brought the same delightfully insincere enthusiasm, the same picturesque devotion.  Each was a pose, but she posed so sweetly that nobody lost patience.

“You mustn’t laugh!” she protested, letting the kitten slip to the ground.  “I’ve had lessons at five guineas each from the most fascinating person—­a professional; and I’m becoming quite an adept.  Of course I haven’t been much beyond the milky appearance yet, but the milky appearance is everything, you know; the rest will come.  I am trying to persuade Blanche to let me have a pavilion at her party in March, and gaze for all you dull political people.”  Again she smiled.

Chilcote smiled as well.  “How is it done?” he asked, momentarily amused.

“Oh, the doing is quite delicious.  You sit at a table with the ball in front of you; then you take the subject’s hands, spread them out on the table, and stroke them very softly while you gaze into the crystal; that gets up the sympathy, you know.”  She looked up innocently.  “Shall I show you?”