mean, but on the other hand, when he said that anything was good, he
always meant that it was first-rate. She wondered where he had learned
so much about music.

After all, she knew very little of his life, and as he never said
anything about his family she was inclined to think that he had no
relations and that he came of people anything but aristocratic. He had
worked his way to the front by sheer talent and energy, and she had the
good sense to think better of him for that, and not less well of him
for his reticence.

Mrs. Rushmore knew no more about Lushington's family than Margaret. The
latter was spending the spring in Versailles with the elderly American
widow, and the successful young writer had been asked to stop a week
with them. Mrs. Rushmore did not care a straw about the family
connections of celebrities, and she knew by experience that it was
generally better not to ask questions about them, as the answers might
place one in an awkward position. She had always acted on the principle
that a real lion needs no pedigree, and belongs by right to the higher
animals. Lushington was a real lion, though he was a young one. His
roar was a passport, and his bite was dangerous. Why make unnecessary
inquiries about his parents? They were probably dead, and, socially,
they had never been alive, since Society had never heard of them. It
was quite possible, Mrs. Rushmore said, that his name was not his own,
for she had met two or three celebrities who had deliberately taken
names to which they did not pretend any legal claim, but which sounded
better than their own.

He had been at Versailles to stay a few days during the previous
spring, and Margaret had seen him several times in the interval, and
they had occasionally exchanged letters. She was quite well aware that
he was in love with her, and she liked him enough not to discourage
him. To marry him would be quite another question, though she did not
look upon it as impossible. Before all, she intended to wait until her
own position was clearly defined.

For the present she did not know whether she had inherited a large
fortune, or was practically a penniless orphan living on the charity of
her friend Mrs. Rushmore; and several months might pass before this
vital question was solved. Mrs. Rushmore believed that Margaret would
get the money, or a large part of it; Margaret did not, and in the
meantime she was doing her best to cultivate her voice in order to
suppo