n't who she is.'

'No doubt,' agreed her aunt. 'Still I sympathize with her parents. I
don't see how they'll ever marry her. She might just as well be Miss
Jones--that girl--for all she makes of herself.'

'Yes; I've often thought so, too,' agreed Hermione, apparently conscious
that the very most was made of _her_.

'She hasn't even been taught to walk.' Lady John was still watching the
girl's approach.

'Yet she looks best out of doors,' said Hermione, firmly.

'Oh, yes! She comes into the drawing-room as if she were crossing a
ploughed field!'

'All the same,' said Hermione, under her breath, 'when she _is_ indoors
I'd rather see her walking than sitting.'

'You mean the way she crosses her legs?'

'Yes.'

'But that, too--it seems like so many other things, a question only of
degree. Nobody objects to seeing a pair of neat ankles crossed--it looks
rather nice and early Victorian. Nowadays lots of girls cross their
knees--and nobody says anything. But Sophia crosses her--well, her
_thighs_.'

And the two women laughed understandingly.

A stranger might imagine that the reason for Lady Sophia's presence in
the party was that she, by common consent, played a capital game of
golf--'for a woman.' That fact, however, was rather against her. For
people who can play the beguiling game, _want_ to play it--and want to
play it not merely now and then out of public spirit to make up a
foursome, but constantly and for pure selfish love of it. Woman may, if
she likes, take it as a compliment to her sex that this proclivity--held
to be wholly natural in a man--is called 'rather unfeminine' in a
woman. But it was a defect like the rest, forgiven the Lady Sophia for
her father's sake. Lord Borrodaile, held to be one of the most
delightful of men, was much in request for parties of this description.
One reason for his daughter's being there was that it glossed the fact
that Lady Borrodaile was not--was, indeed, seldom present, and one may
say never missed, in the houses frequented by her husband.

But as he and his friends not only did not belong to, but looked down
upon, the ultra smart set, where the larger freedoms are practised in
lieu of the lesser decencies, Lord Borrodaile lived his life as far
removed from any touch of scandal and irregularity as the most puritanic
of the bourgeoisie. Part and parcel of his fastidiousness, some
said--others, that from his Eton days he had always been a lazy beggar.
As though to