Anna the Adventuress

Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in

them was obviously meant for him alone. She continued to fan herself.

"You are late," she murmured.

"My chief," he said, "took it into his head to have an impromptu

dinner party. He brought home a few waverers to talk to them where

they had no chance of getting away."

She nodded.

"I am bored," she said abruptly. "This is a very foolish sort of

entertainment. And, as usual," she continued, a little bitterly, "I

seem to have been sent along with the dullest and least edifying of

Mrs. Montressor's guests."

Ennison glanced at the other people in the box and smiled.

"I got your note just in time," he remarked. "I knew of course that

you were at the Montressor's, but I had no idea that it was a music

hall party afterwards. Are you all here?"

"Five boxes full," she answered. "Some of them seem to be having an

awfully good time too. Did you see Lord Delafield and Miss Anderson?

They packed me in with Colonel Anson and Mrs. Hitchings, who seem to

be absolutely engrossed in one another, and a boy of about seventeen,

who no sooner got here than he discovered that he wanted to see a man

in the promenade and disappeared."

Ennison at once seated himself.

"I feel justified then," he said, "in annexing his chair. I expect you

had been snubbing him terribly."

"Well, he was presumptuous," Annabel remarked, "and he wasn't nice

about it. I wonder how it is," she added, "that boys always make love

so impertinently."

Ennison laughed softly.

"I wonder," he said, "how you would like to be made love to--boldly or

timorously or sentimentally."

"Are you master of all three methods?" she asked, stopping her fanning

for a moment to look at him.

"Indeed, no," he answered. "Mine is a primitive and unstudied manner.

It needs cultivating, I think."

His fingers touched hers for a moment under the ledge of the box.

"That sounds so uncouth," she murmured. "I detest amateurs."

"I will buy books and a lay figure," he declared, "to practise upon.

Or shall I ask Colonel Anson for a few hints?"

"For Heaven's sake no," she declared. "I would rather put up with your

own efforts, however clumsy. Love-making at first hand is dull enough.

At second hand it would be unendurable."

He leaned towards her.

"Is that a challenge?"

She shrugged her shoulders, all ablaze with jewels.

"Why not? It might amuse me."

Somewhat irrelevantly he glanced at the next few boxes where the rest

of Mrs. Montressor's guests were.

"Is your husband here to-night?" he asked.

"My husband!" she laughed a little derisively. "No, he wouldn't come

here of all places--just now. He dined, and then pleaded a political

engagement. I was supposed to do the same, but I didn't."