“They evidently are nice people from the way Mr. Cardross writes,” he said.  “You say you know them, Constance?”

“I’ve met them several times—­the way you meet people here.  They have a villa—­rather imposing in an exotic fashion.  Why, yes, Garry, they are nice; dreadfully wealthy, tremendously popular.  Mrs. Carrick, the married daughter, is very agreeable; her mother is amiable and dreadfully stout.  Then there’s a boy of your age—­Gray Cardross—­a well-mannered youth who drives motors, and whom Mr. Classon calls a ‘speed-mad cub.’  Then there is Cecile Cardross—­a debutante of last winter, and then—­” Miss Palliser hesitated, crossed one knee over the other, and sat gently swinging her slippered foot and looking at her nephew.

“Does that conclude the list of the Cardross family?” he asked.

“N-no.  There remains the beauty of the family, Shiela.”  She continued to survey him with smiling intentness, and went on slowly: 

“Shiela Cardross; the girl here.  People are quite mad about her, I assure you.  My dear, every man at Palm Beach tags after her; rows of callow youths sit and gaze at her very footprints in the sand when she crosses the beach; she turns masculine heads to the verge of permanent dislocation.  No guilty man escapes; even Courtlandt Classon is meditating treachery to me, and Mr. Cuyp has long been wavering and Gussie Vetchen too! the wretch!...  We poor women try hard to like her—­but, Garry, is it human to love such a girl?”

“It’s divine, Constance, so you’ll like her.”

“Oh, yes; thank you.  Well, I do; I don’t know her well, but I’m inclined to like her—­in a way....  There’s something else, though.”  She considered her handsome nephew steadily.  “You are to be a guest there while this work of yours is in hand?”

“Yes—­I believe so.”

“Then, dear, without the slightest unworthy impulse or the faintest trace of malice, I wish to put you on your guard.  It’s horrid, but I must.”

“On my guard!” he repeated.

[Illustration:  “So he sat there and told her all about his commission.”]

“Yes—­forearm you, Garry.  Shiela Cardross is a rather bewildering beauty.  She is French convent-bred, clever and cultivated and extremely talented.  Besides that she has every fashionable grace and accomplishment at the ends of her pretty fingers—­and she has a way with her—­a way of looking at you—­which is pure murder to the average man.  And beside that she is very simple and sweet to everybody.  As an assassin of hearts she’s equipped to slay yours, Garry.”

“Well?” he inquired, laughing.  And added:  “Let her slay.  Why not?”

“This, dear.  And you who know me will acquit me of any ignoble motive if I say that she is not your social equal, Garry.”

“What!  I thought you said—­”