Your affectionate but heart-broken nephew, CARYLL.
Into Nina's flat in Mayfair, one rare August morning, entered Lord Kneedrock, unannounced. He found her in her little drawing-room arranging flowers in a vase--flowers not a whit more lovely than herself.
"Whose?" he asked, nodding toward them. It was his first and only word, and she had not seen him for two months.
She went him one better--one letter better.
"Nobody as yet. His bill won't be in until the first of the month."
"I did. Anything more?" She seemed delighted.
He strode over to an open, awninged window and dropped into an invitingly cushioned chair. He was still bearded, still rather leonine, but he was better groomed than in those days in India.
He employed a tailor that was an artist in his craft, and a hair-dresser that was no less so. After a fashion he was almost attractive.
"I am to infer then that there is no present adoring cavalier."
"No," she answered. "Not since last Friday. He has sailed, I believe, to offer his services to the Mexican revolutionists."
"Ah!" he leaned back and gazed pensively over his interlocked fingers. His eyes rested on a bronze in the opposite corner.
"You've never thanked me for that," he said casually.
Nina followed his gaze. "Thanked _you_?" she asked.
"For the cobra?" For it was the cobra with the history that he continued to regard.
"You mean you were the one that sent it to me? There was no card with it--no name."
"I picked it up in Calcutta and fancied it might please you. Eve and the serpent, you know. Rather delicately significant--What?"
She was staring at him, astounded. After all these five years he had unsealed his lips. She noticed his scarred left hand, recalled the part that the bronze had played in that, too--and wondered the more.
"Some day," he said in an undertone that had become habitual, "I'll send you a bronze tigress. That will make the symbolism complete."
"Do--do you so much mind, then?" she asked yieldingly. "I mean about my amusements."
"Your _one_ amusement?" The sneer, the cynicism was in his tone again. "Good God, no! Why should I?"
"You seemed to resent it. I--I'll be very good, if you wish."
"I don't wish anything about it. To be candid, it interests me, when I happen to think of it. You're a type. And I always did like types. The men you first charm and then devour are types, too--types of the weakling. They could never win my sympathy."