r
on. The brown fog was in this hostess's little parlour, where it acted
as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything else
than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire and a
paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign of a
flower; it was not for herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The girl
waited till they had had a cup of tea--waited for the announcement that
she fairly believed her friend had, this time, possessed herself of her
formally at last to make; but nothing came, after the interval, save a
little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing of a throat for a
speech.

CHAPTER XXV

"I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?" Mrs. Jordan had
never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large benevolent
bite.

"Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn't he a friend of Lord Rye?"

"A great and trusted friend. Almost--I may say--a loved friend."

Mrs. Jordan's "almost" had such an oddity that her companion was moved,
rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. "Don't people as good as love
their friends when they I trust them?"

It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. "Well, my dear, I love
_you_--"

"But you don't trust me?" the girl unmercifully asked.

Again Mrs. Jordan paused--still she looked queer. "Yes," she replied
with a certain austerity; "that's exactly what I'm about to give you
rather a remarkable proof of." The sense of its being remarkable was
already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held her auditor
in a momentary muteness of submission. "Mr. Drake has rendered his
lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly
appreciated and that make it all the more--a--unexpected that they
should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate."

"Separate?" Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be
interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the wrong
horse. She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of his
lordship's circle--the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan's
avocations had most happened to throw her. She was only a little puzzled
at the "separation." "Well, at any rate," she smiled, "if they separate
as friends--!"

"Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake's future. He'll
do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There
_must_, you know, be changes--!"

"No one knows it better than I," the girl