n at me and
leaning on his ebony, gold-headed stick.

He added, almost in a friendly manner: "You know, that's just what I've
been wanting to have a little talk to you about."

"A talk to me?" I said.

"Yes, to you, Miss Smith-Lovelace," he nodded. "You do belong to the old
Lovelace Court Lovelaces, I suppose. The Lady Anastasia lot, that had to
let the place. Great pity! Yes! I know all about you," said this
alarming young man with those blue eyes that seemed to look through my
face into the wall and out again into Bond Street. "Let's see, in your
branch there'll be only you and the one brother left, I believe?
Lovelace, Reginald M., Lieutenant Alexandra's Own, I.A. What does he
think of this?"

"Of which?" I fenced, not knowing what else to say to this surprising
and disconcerting person. "You seem to know a good deal about people's
families, Mr. Burke." This I thought was a good way of carrying the war
into the enemy's own country, "or to say you do."

I added this with great emphasis. I meant him to realise that I saw
through him. That I'd guessed it was all pure romancing what he had been
murmuring yesterday to my unsuspecting little mistress about his
friendship with her uncle.

That would astonish this young fortune-hunter, thought I. That would
leave him without a word to say for himself. And then he'd leave me.
He'd turn and go, foiled. And even if he persisted in his attentions to
the dazzled Miss Million, he would remain in a very wholesome state of
terror of Miss Million's maid. This was what I foresaw happening in a
flash. Picture my astonishment, therefore, at what did happen.

The young man took me up without a quiver.

"Ah, you mean that affecting little yarn about old man Million, in
Chicago, don't you?" he said pleasantly. "Very touching, you'll agree,
the way I'd cling to his bedside and put up with his flares of temper,
the dear old (Nature's) gentleman----"

I would have given yet another quarter's salary not to have done what I
did at this moment. I laughed.

That laugh escaped me--I don't know how. How awful! There I stood in the
gallery, with only a sort of custodian and a couple of art-students
about, laughing up at this well-dressed, showy, unprincipled Irishman as
if we were quite friends! I who disapproved of him so utterly! I who
mean to do all in my power to keep him and Million's money apart!

He said: "Didn't I know you had a sense of humour? Let us continue this
very inte