adame Okraska's secretary.

"Dear, dear, what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the
egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them excellently as a
rule."

"I did my best to persuade her," said Miss Woodruff, "but she did not
seem to care for it."

"Didn't care for it? Was it too sweet? I warned Mrs. Jenkins that her
tendency was to put in too much sugar."

"That was it," Miss Woodruff smiled at the other's penetration. "She
tasted it and said: '_Trop sucre_,' and put it down. But it was really
very nice. I drank it!" said Miss Woodruff.

"But I am so grieved. I shall speak severely to Mrs. Jenkins," Mrs.
Forrester murmured, preoccupied. "I am afraid our chances aren't good
to-day, Lady Campion," she turned from Miss Woodruff to say. "You must
come and dine one night while she is with me. I am always sure of her
for dinner."

"She really isn't coming down?" Miss Scrotton leaned over the back of
Miss Woodruff's chair to ask with some asperity of manner. "Shall I wait
for a little before I go up to her?"

"I can't tell," the young girl replied. "She said she did not know
whether she would come or not. She is lying down and reading."

"She does not forget that she comes to me for tea to-morrow?"

"I do not think so, Miss Scrotton."

"Lady Campion wants to talk to you, Karen," Mrs. Forrester now said;
"come to this side of the table." And as Sir Alliston was engaged with
Miss and Mrs. Harding, Gregory was left to Eleanor Scrotton.

Miss Scrotton felt irritation rather than affection for Gregory Jardine.
Yet he was not unimportant to her. Deeper than her pride in old Sir
Jonas was her pride in her connection with the Fanshawes, and Gregory's
mother had been a Fanshawe. Gregory's very indifference to her and to
the standards of the Scrottons had always given to intercourse with him
a savour at once acid yet interesting. Though she knew many men of more
significance, she remained far more aware of him and his opinions than
of theirs. She would have liked Gregory to show more consciousness of
her and his relationship, of the fact that she, too, had Fanshawe blood
in her veins. She would have liked to impress, or please or, at worst,
to displease him. She would very much have liked to secure him more
frequently for her dinners and her teas. He vexed and he allured her.

"Do you really mean that last night was the first time you ever heard
Mercedes Okraska?" she said, moving to a sofa, to which