to the end of the
conservatory, where the others were waiting for them.

"Where have you been, and what have you been doing all this time?" said
Jane, as Trefusis came up, hurrying after Agatha. "I don't know what you
call it, but I call it perfectly disgraceful!"

Sir Charles reddened at his wife's bad taste, and Trefusis replied
gravely: "We have been admiring the orchids, and talking about them.
Miss Wylie takes an interest in them."

CHAPTER XIII

One morning Gertrude got a letter from her father:

"My Dear Gerty: I have just received a bill for L110 from Madame Smith
for your dresses. May I ask you how long this sort of thing is to go
on? I need not tell you that I have not the means to support you in such
extravagance. I am, as you know, always anxious that you should go about
in a style worthy of your position, but unless you can manage without
calling on me to pay away hundreds of pounds every season to Madame
Smith, you had better give up society and stay at home. I positively
cannot afford it. As far as I can see, going into society has not done
you much good. I had to raise L500 last month on Franklands; and it is
too bad if I must raise more to pay your dressmaker. You might at least
employ some civil person, or one whose charges are moderate. Madame
Smith tells me that she will not wait any longer, and charges L50 for a
single dress. I hope you fully understand that there must be an end to
this.

"I hear from your mother that young Erskine is with you at Brandon's. I
do not think much of him. He is not well off, nor likely to get on, as
he has taken to poetry and so forth. I am told also that a man named
Trefusis visits at the Beeches a good deal now. He must be a fool, for
he contested the last Birmingham election, and came out at the foot of
the poll with thirty-two votes through calling himself a Social Democrat
or some such foreign rubbish, instead of saying out like a man that he
was a Radical. I suppose the name stuck in his throat, for his mother
was one of the Howards of Breconcastle; so he has good blood in him,
though his father was nobody. I wish he had your bills to pay; he could
buy and sell me ten times over, after all my twenty-five years' service.

"As I am thinking of getting something done to the house, I had rather
you did not come back this month, if you can possibly hold on at
Brandon's. Remember me to him, and give our kind regards to his wife. I
should be obliged if you w