d on - some of them, I could not help but notice, rather fastidiously. There had come some murmurs, and some whispers; also a titter or two and a gasp. No one in our party paid the slightest heed to any of it. Maria kept her eyes fixed upon myself, and when our drinks arrived, she leered at me over her glass: ''To both ends of the busk!'' she said, and gave me a wink. Diana had her face turned, to catch a story from the lady named Evelyn. She was saying, ''Such a scandal, Diana, you never heard! She has vowed herself to seven women, and sees them all on different days; one of them is her sister-in-law! She has put together an album - my dear, I nearly died at the sight of it! - full of bits and pieces of stuff that she has cut off them or pulled out of them: eyelashes, and toe-nail clippings - old sanitary wrappings, from what I could see of it; and she has hair -''
''Hair, Diana,'' broke in Dickie meaningfully.
''- hair, which she has had made up into rings and aigrettes. Lord Myers saw a brooch, and asked her where she bought it, and Susan told him it was from the tail of a fox, and said she would have one made for him, for his wife! Can you imagine? Now Lady Myers is to be found at, all the fashionable parties with a sprig of Susan Dacre''s sister-in-law''s quim-hair at her bosom!''
Diana smiled. ''And Susan''s husband knows it all, and does not mind it?''