The elderly, ugly heiress, Miss Durning, concerning whom Miss Winwood had, with gentle malice, twitted him some months before, sat by his side.

He sang her songs of Araby and tales of far Cashmere--places which in the commonplace way of travel he had never visited.

What really happened in the drawing room between the departure of the ladies and the entrance of the men no one knows.

But before the ladies went to bed Miss Winwood took Paul aside.
"Paul dear," she said, "you're never going to marry an old woman for money, are you ?" "Good God, no! Dearest lady, what do you mean ?" His cry was so sincere that she laughed.
"Nothing," she said.
"But you must mean something." He threw out his hands.
"Are you aware that you've been flirting disgracefully with Lizzle Durning ?" "I ?" said Paul, clapping a hand to his shirt-front.
"You." He smiled his sunny smile into the clear, direct eyes of his dearest lady--all the more dear because of the premature white of her hair.

"I would flirt to-night with Xantippe, or Kerenhappuch, or Queen Victoria," said he.
"Why ?" He laughed, and although none of the standing and lingering company had overheard them, he gently led her to the curtained embrasure of the drawing-room window.
"This is perhaps the biggest day of my life.