eived himself to be a
master. The meeting of the two men under the Grosvilles' roof struck
Darrell as curious. Why had Cliffe been invited by these very
respectable and straitlaced people the Grosvilles? Darrell could only
reflect that Lady Eleanor Cliffe, the traveller's mother, was probably
connected with them by some of those innumerable and ever-ramifying
links that hold together a certain large group of English families; and
that, moreover, Lady Grosville, in spite of philanthropy and
Evangelicalism, had always shown a rather pronounced taste in
"lions"--of the masculine sort. Of the women to be met with at Grosville
Park, one could be certain. Lady Grosville made no excuses for her own
sex. But she was a sufficiently ambitious hostess to know that agreeable
parties are not constructed out of the saints alone. The men, therefore,
must provide the sinners; and of some of the persons then most in vogue
she was careful not to know too much. For, socially, one must live; and
that being so, the strictness of to-day may have at any moment to be
purchased by the laxity of to-morrow. Such, at any rate, was Darrell's
analysis of the situation.

He was still astonished, however, when all was said. For Cliffe during
the preceding winter, on his return from some remarkable travels in
Persia, had paused on the Riviera, and an affair at Cannes with a French
vicomtesse had got into the English papers. No one knew the exact truth
of it; and a small volume of verse by Cliffe, published immediately
afterwards--verse very distinguished, passionate, and obscure--had
offered many clews, but no solution whatever. Nobody supposed, however,
that the story was anything but a bad one. Moreover, the last book of
travels--which had had an enormous success--contained one of the most
malicious attacks on foreign missions that Darrell remembered. And if
the missionaries had a supporter in England, it was Lady Grosville. Had
she designs--material designs--on behalf of Miss Amy or Miss Caroline?
Darrell smiled at the notion. Cliffe must certainly marry money, and was
not to be captured by any Miss Amys--or Lady Kittys either, for the
matter of that.

But?--Darrell glanced at the lady beside him, and his busy thoughts took
a new turn. He had seen the greeting between Miss Lyster and Cliffe. It
was cold; but all the same the world knew that they had once been
friends. Was it some five years before that Miss Lyster, then in the
height of a brillian