caressing accent in it, while her eyes were melting with
discreetly veiled love. "And I plotted so much to get beside you."

"That is the damned thing," he replied between his teeth, and smiling
the while to some comment of his other neighbour, "you plot too much,
my dear. I do not want to be unkind, but a little less plotting would
become you more. I have no great liking for your husband, as you may
guess; but there he's covered with compote and confusion, and for the
look of the thing, if for no more, it would suit his wife to pretend
some sympathy. In any case, for God's sake do not look at me as if I
shared your amusement at his trouble. And I'm sure that Elchies by his
glowering saw you eat my plum."

Mrs. Petullo cast a glance of disdain at the poor object she was bound
to by a marriage for position and money, and for a moment or two gave
no attention to the society of his Grace's Chamberlain, who was so
suspiciously in her confidence.

Simon MacTaggart played idly with the stem of his glass. He was odd
in that bibulous age, inasmuch as he never permitted wine to tempt his
palate to the detriment of his brains, and he listened gravely to the
conversation that was being monopolised at the head of the table round
the Duke.

Women liked him. Indeed women loved this Chamberlain of Argyll readily,
more for his eyes and for his voice and for some odd air of mystery and
romance in his presence than for what generally pass for good looks.
He had just the history and the career and reputation that to men
and women, except the very wisest and the somewhat elderly, have an
attraction all unreasonable; for his youth had been stormy; he had
known great dangers, tremendous misfortunes, overcoming both by a
natural--sometimes spendthrift--courage; he was credited with more than
one amorous intrigue, that being in high quarters was considered rather
in his favour than otherwise; he was high in the esteem of families in
the social scale considerably above his own (that had greatly declined
since his people could first boast a coat impaled with the galley
of Lome); he was alert, mind and body, polite to punctilio, a far
traveller, a good talker, and above all a lover of his kind, so that he
went about with a smile (just touched a little by a poetic melancholy)
for all. To the women at Argyll's table he was the most interesting man
there, and though materially among the least eminent and successful,
had it been his humour to st