who had consistently thwarted and defeated him. But he recollected now, as he hurried toward her hotel, that, with all the surprising things she had done, she had never yet gone so far as to try to force her way into society; and he recalled all at once Matthew, her father,—militant and uncouth—with his head and neck of a triumphant bull and his vest spotted with dropped food. No doubt, he told himself, a Malaysian court, with its ten thousand half-clad attendants, might seem to her the easiest way to social distinction; and suddenly Hereford felt that now at last he knew her perfectly.
He was not in the least surprised, therefore, at the length of time she kept him waiting after he had sent up his card.
When finally he was ushered up he found a slender girl in a gray suit, with an abun-
