The Tigress

It was an unfortunate choice of phrasing. Every one noticed it and thought of poor Darling. Every one, that is, except Nina herself, to whom the comparison never occurred. She was too occupied in thinking of how Charlotte Grey would look when she saw her without her veil.

"You needn't mind us, of course," said Charlotte just at that minute.

"Oh, I don't!" Nina came back. "I know you'll overlook any blemishes."

"Indeed we will," agreed the duke; "we're all so devilish glad to see you!" He put a hand under her elbow and whispered close to her ear. "Come sit by me. There's some very excellent seed-cake."

Then, laughing, Nina sat down with the duke on her right and Sir George Grey on the other side of her. The three ladies faced her directly. So did Lord Waltheof, who had his customary place behind Kitty Bellingdown's chair.

A footman came in with the tea-things, and Nina glanced around inquiringly. "Isn't Nibbetts here?" she asked, striving to make the question appear casual.

Everybody seemed to look at everybody else, and no one was in any haste to answer. Already the duchess was busy with the cups and saucers.

"Nibbetts has gone to Scotland," Shucks finally told her.

"Is it possible he's still running after his marmalade lass?" she laughed. "You men do have odd tastes."

"Something wrong with Nibbetts – that's a fact," declared his grace bluntly. "Does most unheard-of things."

"I don't understand," she said, turning to him with sudden seriousness. "What unheard-of things, for example?"

But here the duchess intervened. "Do be still, Pucketts. You're very hard on Nibbetts. You always were. He's never been anything but eccentric. Why magnify a phase of it into something extraordinary?"

"Because it is extraordinary," the duke defended. "Fancy a man haunting the tiger-house at the Zoölogical Gardens day after day, and for hours at a stretch! It's not sane, you know."

Nina bent her veiled face closer to him. "Does Hal Kneedrock do that?" she asked.

"He did," was the answer. "I saw him there myself. Others saw him. I say, Doody, didn't I see Nibbetts in the tiger-house?"

"I dare say you did," his wife confirmed. "But what of it?"

"It's very odd, I say. Very odd. It looks like second childhood. The kiddies like to go to the tiger-house."

No one else said a word. But they all seemed most interested, in Nina especially.

"But now he's gone to Scotland, you say?" she asked.

"Yes, to Scotland. Are there any zoölogical gardens in Scotland, I wonder? Doody, are there any zoölogical gardens in Scotland?"

"Nibbetts has gone to Dundee," the duchess returned, pouring tea. "I don't fancy he'll be able to find any tigers there."

"There's a girl there," said Nina. "He told me so. A girl and a parrot. Can you imagine Nibbetts and a romance?" Her laugh rippled through her veil.

Sir George handed her her tea, and she lifted her veil to a point between her nose and her upper lip. The women stared, and so did the men. But there wasn't a scar in sight.

"Do try the seed-cake," urged the duke. "I can recommend it. I can, really."

Nina tried it. A minute later her veil went to the bridge of her nose, which she brushed with a filmy speck of handkerchief.

They all gazed over their cups, and their eyes testified to their astonishment. Her cheeks were of rose-leaf texture, unmarred.

Then, quite casually, she put down her cup and saucer, lifted her arms, got busy with her hands, and – presto! – her hat and veil were off and her whole face bare to where her golden hair swept across her brow.

Charlotte Grey gasped. The duchess and Lady Bellingdown were dumb.

"By gad!" exclaimed Waltheof in a fervor of astonished admiration. "You're more beautiful than ever, Mrs. Darling."

"We fancied you were horribly marked," cried the duke. "We did, really. All purple blotches and that sort of thing. Didn't we, Doody?"

"Speak for yourself, Pucketts," said Doody. "I could never imagine Nina anything but lovely."

Kitty Bellingdown had turned to frown at her cavalier. She regarded his outburst as quite unnecessary and very ill-timed.

Charlotte Grey gasped a second time. Then she said: "I'd be willing to be burned to get a complexion like yours, dear."

"But, you see, I had the foundation to begin on; and I had a friend who was willing to sacrifice something for me," replied Nina sweetly. So sweetly that Charlotte Grey fairly gritted her teeth.

Lady Bellingdown grasped the situation and rushed to the rescue with a change of subject.

"Nina," she said, "did you know that Caryll had returned to his wife?"

Then it was really Mrs. Darling's turn to gasp. "Really!" she exclaimed.

"Yes. He was in England for a week, but never came near us. It seems they had a quarrel over some trifle and he ran away to give her a lesson. Unfortunately it got into the papers."

"I saw it," Nina white-lied valiantly.

"But did you see about Mrs. Veynol?"

"You mean – "

"About her marriage."

"Her marriage? Surely – "

"Yes. She's married for the third time. Now it's a journalist, a sub-editor on one of the cheap and nasty society weeklies. Fancy!"

"Ah, that cleared the way, then. Caryll would never have gone back otherwise."

"You think that?"

"I know it. He told me as much."

"You mean you saw him – saw him the week he was here?"

Nina colored faintly. She had not meant to tell.

"Yes," she answered. "He came to me at Bath. He wanted me to save him. He couldn't quite decide between the pair of them, so he wished to compromise on me."