uperior. Why, you have played, Chloe.'

'Never!'

'I've heard you say you played once, and a bigger stake it was, you
said, than anybody ever did play.'

'Not money.'

'What then?'

'My life.'

'Goodness--yes! I understand. I understand everything to-night-men too.
So you did!--They're not so shamefully wicked, Chloe. Because I can't
see the wrong of human nature--if we're discreet, I mean. Now and then a
country dance and a game, and home to bed and dreams. There's no harm
in that, I vow. And that's why you stayed at this place. You like it,
Chloe?'

'I am used to it.'

'But when you're married to Count Caseldy you'll go?'

'Yes, then.'

She uttered it so joylessly that Duchess Susan added, with intense
affectionateness, 'You're not obliged to marry him, dear Chloe.'

'Nor he me, madam.'

The duchess caught at her impulsively to kiss her, and said she would
undress herself, as she wished to be alone.

From that night she was a creature inflamed.

CHAPTER VII

The total disappearance of the pair of heroes who had been the latest
in the conspiracy to vex his delicate charge, gave Mr. Beamish a high
opinion of Caseldy as an assistant in such an office as he held. They
had gone, and nothing more was heard of them. Caseldy confined his
observations on the subject to the remark that he had employed the best
means to be rid of that kind of worthies; and whether their souls had
fled, or only their bodies, was unknown. But the duchess had quiet
promenades with Caseldy to guard her, while Mr. Beamish counted the
remaining days of her visit with the impatience of a man having cause to
cast eye on a clock. For Duchess Susan was not very manageable now; she
had fits of insurgency, and plainly said that her time was short, and
she meant to do as she liked, go where she liked, play when she liked,
and be an independent woman--if she was so soon to be taken away and
boxed in a castle that was only a bigger sedan.

Caseldy protested he was as helpless as the beau. He described the
annoyance of his incessant running about at her heels in all directions
amusingly, and suggested that she must be beating the district to
recover her 'strange cavalier,' of whom, or of one that had ridden
beside her carriage half a day on her journey to the Wells, he said she
had dropped a sort of hint. He complained of the impossibility of his
getting an hour in privacy with his Chloe.

'And I, accustomed to consult with her, se