If John Kendal had been an on-looker at the little episode of Lady Halifax's drawing-room in Paris six months earlier it would have filled him with the purest, amusement.

He would have added the circumstance to his conception of the type of young woman who enacted it, and turned away without stopping to consider whether it flattered her or not.

His comprehension of human nature was too catholic very readily to permit him impressions either of wonder or contempt--it would have been a matter of registration and a smile.

Realizing this, Kendal was the more at a loss to explain to himself the feeling of irritation which the recollection of the scene persistently aroused in him, in spite of a pronounced disposition, of which he could not help being aware, not to register it but to ignore it.

His memory refused to be a party to his intention, and the tableau recurred to him with a persistence which he found distinctly disagreeable.