you're going on to the Foreign Office, as
I suppose you are, you'll probably see him to-night. She is uncannily
like him. As to her father, I don't know--but he was a rolling-stone of
a creature; you very likely came across him."

"I knew her mother and her father?" said Sir Wilfrid, astonished and
pondering.

"They had no right to be her mother and her father," said Lady Henry,
with grimness.

"Ah! So if one does guess--"

"You'll please hold your tongue."

"But at present I'm completely mystified," said Sir Wilfrid.

"Perhaps it'll come to you later. You've a good memory generally for
such things. Anyway, I can't tell you anything now. But when'll you come
again? To-morrow--luncheon? I really want you."

"Would you be alone?"

"Certainly. _That_, at least, I can still do--lunch as I please, and
with whom I please. Who is this coming in? Ah, you needn't tell me."

The old lady turned herself towards the entrance, with a stiffening of
the whole frame, an instinctive and passionate dignity in her whole
aspect, which struck a thrill through her companion.

The little Duchess approached, amid a flutter of satin and lace,
heralded by the scent of the Parma violets she wore in profusion at her
breast and waist. Her eye glanced uncertainly, and she approached with
daintiness, like one stepping on mined ground.

"Aunt Flora, I must have just a minute."

"I know no reason against your having ten, if you want them," said Lady
Henry, as she held-out three fingers to the new-comer. "You promised
yesterday to come and give me a full account of the Devonshire House
ball. But it doesn't matter--and you have forgotten."

"No, indeed, I haven't," said the Duchess, embarrassed. "But you seemed
so well employed to-night, with other people. And now--"

"Now you are going on," said Lady Henry, with a most unfriendly suavity.

"Freddie says I must," said the other, in the attitude of a protesting
child.

"_Alors_!" said Lady Henry, lifting her hand. "We all know how obedient
you are. Good-night!"

The Duchess flushed. She just touched her aunt's hand, and then, turning
an indignant face on Sir Wilfrid, she bade him farewell with an air
which seemed to him intended to avenge upon his neutral person the
treatment which, from Lady Henry, even so spoiled a child of fortune as
herself could not resent.

Twenty minutes later, Sir Wilfrid entered the first big room of the
Foreign Office party. He looked round him with a revi