ill get out of it?"

"It is my nephew who will 'get out of it,' as you express it."

I totally misunderstood her. "Oh!" I protested stupidly. "He doesn't
look like that. And it takes all meaning from the cake."

"Do not say cake to me again!" said the lady, smiling at last.
"And--will you allow me to tell you that I do not need to have my
nephew, John Mayrant, explained to me by any one? I merely meant to say
that he, and not she, is the person who will make the lucky escape. Of
course, he is honorable--a great deal too much so for his own good. It
is a misfortune, nowadays, to be born a gentleman in America. But, as
I told you, I am not solicitous. What she is counting on--because
she thinks she understands true Kings Port honor, and does not in the
least--is his renouncing her on account of the phosphates--the bad
news, I mean. They could live on what he has--not at all in her way,
though--and besides, after once offering his genuine, ardent, foolish
love--for it was genuine enough at the time--John would never--"

She stopped; but I took her up. "Did I understand you to say that his
love was genuine at the lime?"

"Oh, he thinks it is now--insists it is now! That is just precisely what
would make him--do you not see?--stick to his colors all the closer."

"Goodness!" I murmured. "What a predicament!"

But my hostess nodded easily. "Oh, no. You will see. They will all see."

I rose to take my leave; my visit, indeed, had been, for very interest,
prolonged beyond the limits of formality--my hostess had attended quite
thoroughly to my being entertained. And at this point the other, the
more severe and elderly lady, made her contribution to my entertainment.
She had kept silence, I now felt sure, because gossip was neither
her habit nor to her liking. Possibly she may have also felt that her
displeasure had been too manifest; at any rate, she spoke out of her
silence in cold, yet rich, symmetrical tones.

"This, I understand, is your first visit to Kings Port?"

I told her that it was.

She laid down her exquisite embroidery. "It has been thought a place
worth seeing. There is no town of such historic interest at the North."

Standing by my chair, I assured her that I did not think there could be.

"I heard you allude to my half-sister-in-law, Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael.
It was at the house where she now lives that the famous Miss Beaufain
(as she was then) put the Earl of Mainridge in his place, at the
rece