Almandine, Lord Pormanton's, you know, fine
vessel. I had the son and his friend, the
Prince of Saxe-Grroningen, to lunch with me.
Most gentlemanly fellow. Ah! by the way,
Sir Charles, here he is. Conway, allow me.
Sir Charles Panton—Miss Panton."

Conway, perfect gentleman as he was,
conld give a rebuke, or be insolent even,
with his face. He conveyed by his cold bow
that he had not desired this introduction,
and conveyed it to all the parties concerned.

"I hope Doctor Bailey," he said, turning
to Jessica, " will not ask me to make any
more acquaintances. I make it a point to
be disagreeable, and a Miss Mammon I
never can stand."

"I am delighted," said Jessica, enthusiastically.
"My father thinks them the greatest
people in the world, and is always
asking them, or wishing to be asked by
them. You saw how she looked at me.
She is empress over this part of the country.
But I am not under her, and disdain her
rule, and would die before I would submit
to her. And she knows it."

"How you and I shall agree," said Con-
way. " It is refreshing to hear such
independence. I am independent, too, of all
the world, except of a certain good but
rather ambitious person, whose name is
Formanton."

"Oh, your father?"

"Yes. My poor mother, last and only
one of all my friends, left me to him.
I am his while he lives, as much as a serf
used to be in Russia. But for this I should
have married ten, fifteen years ago, and
done something. As it is, I have been
leading an actor's life, instead of doing
something useful. Now I have grown old,
and the best part of life is gone. But I
have made a promise, and must stick to it.
' Stick to it!' Is not that a refined speech?
Even in English, where I used to be rather
' nice.' You see the decay?"

It must have been time for the déjeuner,
for Doctor Bailey was bustling people about,
and giving loud orders, causing angry faces
to be turned round as he stood on dresses
and roughly pushed past ladies. He was
always hot and angry when he stood on a
lady's dress, or dragged it from her waist.

"Such things! A man can't walk. I
really must ask you, ma'am, to stand out of
the way. No one can get by."

"Rude bear!" "Savage!" were the
whispered rejoinders. There was another
lady of rank present, whom the doctor
himself had described as "a broken-down
honourable," whom he was obliged to " take
in," and he gave out orders right and left
to others, dragging this partner about, and
clutching at young men. " Here, you
get somebody and take 'em in." Then
his eye fell on Miss Panton, and he seized
Mr. Conway and eagerly " hauled " him
to her side. As for his own daughter, what
did it matter what became of her?
Conway, now that fate was inexorable, offered
himself for duty with perfect complacency.
But he could see the unconcealed
dissatisfaction, the open colour, of the lady
he was thus obliged to leave. This sort
of character, clear as crystal, which
disdained to conceal, was really new to him,
and quite inviting.

With his new companion he was quite a
different person. He became the
conventional gentleman of parties and amusements,
asked with apparent interest as to her balls
and parties, and talked in the usual
personal way of his own movements. One thing
she saw clearly, he was not in the least
impressed by her acknowledged sovereignty.

"I see you know those Baileys," she
said, pettishly. "Very pushing people."
He had never met so fretted a voice.

"I like her," said Mr. Conway, with an
affected warmth, " so much. She is charmingly
natural, and full of honesty. She is to
be pitied with that intrusive father, who
should have been chamberlain at a little
German court, not an English clergyman."

"I know nothing of them," said she,
haughtily; " nothing whatever. Of course
we exchange visits, and that sort of thing,
but I do not wish to go beyond it."

"So I have heard,'' said Conway, smiling.
"They have told me already that
Miss Panton is queen of this country for
miles round. They speak with distending
eyes, and gaping mouths, of her vast wealth,
and gold and jewels. I am sure it must
amuse you. But these poor people can't
help it, you know."

"And these people I suppose have been
telling you all this?"

"These people?" repeated Mr. Conway,
wishing " to take her down" a little. " Oh,
Dr. Bailey and his daughter, Miss Bailey.
I see, I am getting on the thin ice. You
know a stranger cannot be, nor is he
expected to be, posted up in the little
vendettas of a place like this."

The pettish look she gave him, gave him
pleasure afterwards to think of. " I a
vendetta with them! I repeat they are
outside our circle. It is barely an acquaintance.
You might as well say I have a
vendetta with that sailor there."