satisfaction. Human nature knows millions of these inconsequent

little feuds, springing up and flourishing apart from any basis of
racial, political, religious or economic causes, as a hint perhaps

to crass unseeing altruists that enmity has its place and purpose
in the world as well as benevolence.

Elaine had not personally congratulated Suzette since the formal
announcement of her engagement to the young man with the

dissentient tailoring effects. The impulse to go and do so now,
overmastered her sense of what was due to Comus in the way of

explanation. The letter was still in its blank unwritten stage, an
unmarshalled sequence of sentences forming in her brain, when she

ordered her car and made a hurried but well-thought-out change into
her most sumptuously sober afternoon toilette. Suzette, she felt

tolerably sure, would still be in the costume that she had worn in
the Park that morning, a costume that aimed at elaboration of

detail, and was damned with overmuch success.
Suzette's mother welcomed her unexpectedvisitor with obvious

satisfaction. Her daughter's engagement, she explained, was not so
brilliant from the social point of view as a girl of Suzette's

attractions and advantages might have legitimately aspired to, but
Egbert was a thoroughly commendable and dependable young man, who

would very probably win his way before long to membership of the
County Council.

"From there, of course, the road would be open to him to higher
things."

"Yes," said Elaine, "he might become an alderman."
"Have you seen their photographs, taken together?" asked Mrs.

Brankley, abandoning the subject of Egbert's prospectivecareer.
"No, do show me," said Elaine, with a flattering show of interest;

"I've never seen that sort of thing before. It used to be the
fashion once for engaged couples to be photographed together,

didn't it?"
"It's VERY much the fashion now," said Mrs. Brankley assertively,

but some of the complacency had filtered out of her voice. Suzette
came into the room, wearing the dress that she had worn in the Park

that morning.
"Of course, you've been hearing all about THE engagement from

mother," she cried, and then set to work conscientiously to cover
the same ground.

"We met at Grindelwald, you know. He always calls me his Ice
Maiden because we first got to know each other on the skating rink.

Quite romantic, wasn't it? Then we asked him to tea one day, and
we got to be quite friendly. Then he proposed."

"He wasn't the only one who was smitten with Suzette," Mrs.
Brankley hastened to put in, fearful lest Elaine might suppose that

Egbert had had things all his own way. "There was an American
millionaire who was quite taken with her, and a Polish count of a

very old family. I assure you I felt quite nervous at some of our
tea-parties."

Mrs. Brankley had given Grindelwald a sinister but rather alluring
reputation among a large circle of untravelled friends as a place

where the insolence of birth and wealth was held in precarious
check from breaking forth into scenes of savage violence.

"My marriage with Egbert will, of course, enlarge the sphere of my
life enormously," pursued Suzette.

"Yes," said Elaine; her eyes were rather remorselessly taking in
the details of her cousin's toilette. It is said that nothing is

sadder than victory except defeat. Suzette began to feel that the
tragedy of both was concentrated in the creation which had given

her such unalloyed gratification, till Elaine had come on the
scene.

"A woman can be so immensely helpful in the social way to a man who
is making a career for himself. And I'm so glad to find that we've

a great many ideas in common. We each made out a list of our idea
of the hundred best books, and quite a number of them were the

same."
"He looks bookish," said Elaine, with a critical glance at the

photograph.
"Oh, he's not at all a bookworm," said Suzette quickly, "though

he's tremendouslywell-read. He's quite the man of action."
"Does he hunt?" asked Elaine.

"No, he doesn't get much time or opportunity for riding."
"What a pity," commented Elaine; "I don't think I could marry a man

who wasn't fond of riding."
"Of course that's a matter of taste," said Suzette, stiffly;

"horsey men are not usually gifted with overmuch brains, are they?"
"There is as much difference between a horseman and a horsey man as

there is between a well-dressed man and a dressy one," said Elaine,
judicially; "and you may have noticed how seldom a dressy woman

really knows how to dress. As an old lady of my acquaintance
observed the other day, some people are born with a sense of how to

clothe themselves, others acquire it, others look as if their
clothes had been thrust upon them."

She gave Lady Caroline her due quotation marks, but the sudden
tactfulness with which she looked away from her cousin's frock was

entirely her own idea.
A young man entering the room at this moment caused a diversion

that was rather welcome to Suzette.
"Here comes Egbert," she announced, with an air of subdued triumph;

it was at least a satisfaction to be able to produce the captive of
her charms, alive and in good condition, on the scene. Elaine

might be as critical as she pleased, but a live lover outweighed
any number of well-dressed straight-riding cavaliers who existed

only as a distant vision of the delectable husband.
Egbert was one of those men who have no small talk, but possess an

inexhaustible supply of the larger variety. In whatever society he
happened to be, and particularly in the immediate neighbourhood of

an afternoon-tea table, with a limitedaudience of womenfolk, he
gave the impression of someone who was addressing a public meeting,

and would be happy to answer questions afterwards. A suggestion of
gas-lit mission-halls, wet umbrellas, and discreetapplause seemed

to accompany him everywhere. He was an exponent, among other
things, of what he called New Thought, which seemed to lend itself

conveniently to the employment of a good deal of rather stale
phraseology. Probably in the course of some thirty odd years of

existence he had never been of any notable use to man, woman, child
or animal, but it was his firmly-announced intention to leave the

world a better, happier, purer place than he had found it; against
the danger of any relapse to earlier conditions after his

disappearance from the scene, he was, of course, powerless to
guard. 'Tis not in mortals to insuresuccession, and Egbert was

admittedly mortal.
Elaine found him immensely entertaining, and would certainly have

exerted herself to draw him out if such a proceeding had been at
all necessary. She listened to his conversation with the

complacent appreciation that one bestows on a stage tragedy, from
whose calamities one can escape at any moment by the simple process

of leaving one's seat. When at last he checked the flow of his
opinions by a hurriedreference to his watch, and declared that he

must be moving on elsewhere, Elaine almost expected a vote of
thanks to be accorded him, or to be asked to signify herself in

favour of some resolution by holding up her hand.
When the young man had bidden the company a rapid business-like

farewell, tempered in Suzette's case by the exact degree of tender
intimacy that it would have been considered improper to omit or

overstep, Elaine turned to her expectant cousin with an air of
cordial congratulation.

"He is exactly the husband I should have chosen for you, Suzette."
For the second time that afternoon Suzette felt a sense of waning

enthusiasm for one of her possessions.
Mrs. Brankley detected the note of ironical congratulation in her

visitor's verdict.
"I suppose she means he's not her idea of a husband, but, he's good

enough for Suzette," she observed to herself, with a snort that
expressed itself somewhere in the nostrils of the brain. Then with