can spend. Do you find the experience as satisfactory as you expected?”

Claudia smiled, and leaned back luxuriously against her cushions.

“Oh, quite!” she cried emphatically. “After two years’ experience, I am still of the opinion that it is the only thing that matters. It’s wonderful what money can do, Meriel; it’s magical! Good people talk of greater gifts that you may get if you are good and self-denying, and have a dull time, but they are all in the clouds, and money is so delightfully, so tangibly real!” She glanced round the beautiful room, then down to the little ringed hand stretched out to the fire; she moved her fingers to and fro, so that the flames might wake the sparkle of gems, and heaved a sigh of luxurious content. “I used to long for things that I could not have; now I never need to long, for they are mine as soon as I think of them! How can one help being happy, when one has everything one wants?”

“There are some things that money cannot buy.” Once more Meriel could not resist echoing the truism of centuries, but Claudia shook her head with laughing contradiction.

“Rubbish! Don’t you believe it! Anyway, money can buy such good imitations that you can’t tell them from real! It can do more than that. It—” She paused, with a sudden intake of breath, and her voice sank to a deeper note: “It can cover things up!”

Meriel’s eyes shot a curious glance. Through the evening she had studied the husband and wife with a puzzled scrutiny, and now, at the end of it, she felt as far as ever from solving the mystery which she sensed as lying beneath the surface. Claudia’s manner to her husband was gay and charming, but in the midst of her lightest badinage the friend of her youth had discerned an effort, a strain, an almost painful endeavour to win his approval.

And he? Nothing could be more marked than the man’s care for his beautiful wife. Why was it that through all his elaborate attentions there lurked a cold, a sinister effect?

“But what can you have that you wish to cover, Claudia?” Meriel inquired. “By your own confession, you have only to wish and it is yours, and you have a devoted husband who looks after you as if you were the most fragile of hothouse flowers. It’s absurd, you know, for you were always as strong as a horse! That transparent look of yours is a delusion; but how upset he seemed, poor man, because your cheek was just a little inflamed to-night.”

Claudia straightened herself; an involuntary shiver shook her slight form. Her voice had a nervous ring:

“It’s nothing—it’s nothing!” she cried. “Just spring, and these horrid east winds. But it won’t go! I’ve tried a dozen things; and he hates it—he hates any fuss or illness! I must never be ill, or have anything that spoils. There’s this ball coming on next week, and I am to be the Ice Queen. I must get my face better before then! I’ve got the most wonderful dress. He planned it for me. He is determined there shall be nothing to touch it in the room. Goodness knows the amount he has spent upon it! I simply daren’t look anything but my best!”

“My dear Claudia!” Meriel’s voice was full of protest. “What nonsense you talk! You are very beautiful, my dear, but you can’t expect an eternal perfection! You must have your ups and downs like other people, and grow old in your turn, and lose your hair and complexion, and grow withered and toothless!”

Claudia leaped to her feet with a gesture which was almost fierce in its intensity.

“Be quiet!” she cried. “Be quiet! Don’t dare to speak of it. I’m young still; not twenty-seven. I’ve ages and ages ahead before I need think of growing old. And women don’t lose their beauty nowadays. They know how to keep it. They have to keep it! And I—I more than anyone!”

She crossed the room to her dressing-table, and, switching on an extra electric light, bent low to examine her face in the glass.

“It’s only a slight rash, Meriel; but it won’t go! I—I don’t know what to do about it. I’m worried to death. Do help me. Do advise. Do tell me what to do.”

It was the first time that Claudia’s friend had ever heard her appeal for help, and there was a thrill in her voice which could not be denied.

“My dear girl,” she said quickly, “I’m no good at cosmetics. My complexion has to take its chance, and nobody cares whether it’s good or bad. But if you are specially anxious to look your best at this ball, why waste time in experiments? A few guineas more or less is nothing to you. Go to-morrow to consult the first skin specialist in London.”

Claudia looked at her, a long, thoughtful look. She began to speak and checked herself, subduing as it were a bidden fear. Then she nodded slowly, once and again.

“I will!” she said firmly. “I will. It’s folly putting it off. I’ll telephone at once, and make an appointment.”

The examination was over. A longer and more exhaustive examination than seemed necessary for so slight a cause. The specialist stood hesitating, his face puckered in thought.

Claudia smiled at him with her most dazzling smile.

“You think you can make me quite better for the ball?”

He looked at her swiftly, and as swiftly looked away.

“That is a very short time. I am afraid I can hardly promise that.”

“How soon can you make me better?”

“These skin troubles are sometimes lengthy affairs. It will be necessary for you to have a course of treatment. I should like to see Mr—er—your husband, and talk the matter over with him.”

But at that Claudia swept forward with a commanding air.

“It is impossible! I forbid it! He does not know that I am here to-day. He must not know! If there is anything to be done, I must do it without his knowledge! I cannot tell him. I dare not tell him: What is it that is wrong with my face? It is only a little rash. Why do you look at me like that? For God’s sake say that it won’t take long, that it won’t get worse; that I shall be able to—to hide it from him; to keep my beauty! What is the matter? Why don’t you speak? You must tell me. If you know! Whatever it is I must bear it alone! I daren’t tell him—he must never know!”

The great doctor turned away his face. His lips moved, once and again, before at last the dread word echoed through the room:

“Lupus!”