iety, at Viscountess Sedley's, at
Lady Dolchester's, at Bramham DeWitt's, and heard of him as a frequenter
of the Prussian and Austrian Embassy entertainments; and also that he was
admitted to the exclusive dinner-parties of the Countess de Strode,
'which are,' he observed, in the moderated tone of an astonishment
devoting itself to propagation, 'the cream of society.' Indubitably,
then, my father was an impostor: more Society proved it. The squire
listened like one pelted by a storm, sure of his day to come at the close
of the two months. I gained his commendation by shunning the metropolitan
Balls, nor did my father press me to appear at them. It was tacitly
understood between us that I should now and then support him at his
dinner-table, and pass bowing among the most select of his great ladies.
And this I did, and I felt at home with them, though I had to bear with
roughnesses from one or two of the more venerable dames, which were not
quite proper to good breeding. Old Lady Kane, great-aunt of the Marquis
of Edbury, was particularly my tormentor, through her plain-spoken
comments on my father's legal suit; for I had to listen to her without
wincing, and agree in her general contempt of the Georges, and foil her
queries coolly, when I should have liked to perform Jorian DeWitt's
expressed wish to 'squeeze the acid out of her in one grip, and toss her
to the Gods that collect exhausted lemons.' She took extraordinary
liberties with me.

'Why not marry an Englishwoman? Rich young men ought to choose wives from
their own people, out of their own sets. Foreign women never get on well
in this country, unless they join the hounds to hunt the husband.'

She cited naturalized ladies famous for the pastime. Her world and its
outskirts she knew thoroughly, even to the fact of my grandfather's
desire that I should marry Janet Ilchester. She named a duke's daughter,
an earl's. Of course I should have to stop the scandal: otherwise the
choice I had was unrestricted. My father she evidently disliked, but she
just as much disliked an encounter with his invincible bonhomie and
dexterous tongue. She hinted at family reasons for being shy of him,
assuring me that I was not implicated in them.

'The Guelph pattern was never much to my taste,' she said, and it
consoled me with the thought that he was not ranked as an adventurer in
the houses he entered. I learned that he was supposed to depend chiefly
on my vast resources. Edbury act