n you go out walking with her?"

He was just on the point of saying something about greenroom manners,
but thought better of it.

"Now, Miss Burgoyne," he said to her, "on Saturday night you are going
to put on your most winning way--you can do it when you like--and you
are going to captivate and fascinate those two people until they'll go
away home with the conviction that you are the most charming and
delightful creature that ever lived. You can do it easily enough if you
like--no one better. You are going to be very nice to them, and you'll
send them away just in love with Grace Mainwaring."

Miss Burgoyne altered her tone a little.

"If I give your giraffe friend those flowers, I suppose you expect me to
tell lies as well?" she asked, with some approach to good-humor.

"About what?"

"Oh, about being delighted to make her acquaintance, and that kind of
thing."

"I have no doubt you will be as pleased to make her acquaintance as she
will be to make yours," said he, "and a few civil words never do any
harm."

Here Miss Burgoyne was called. She went to the little side-table and
sipped some of her home-brewed lemonade; then he opened the door for
her, and together they went up into the wings.

"Tall, is she?" continued Miss Burgoyne, as they were looking on at Mr.
Fred Collier's buffooneries out there on the stage. "Is she as silent
and stupid as her brother?"

"Her brother?"

"Lord Rockminster."

"Oh, Lord Rockminster isn't her brother. You've got them mixed up," said
Lionel. "Miss Cunyngham's brother, Sir Hugh, married a sister of Lord
Rockminster--the Lady Adela Cunyngham who came to your room one
night--don't you remember?"

"You seem to have the whole peerage and baronetage at your fingers'
ends," said she, sullenly; and the next moment she was on the stage,
smiling and gracious, and receiving her father's guests with that
charming manner which the heroine of the operetta could assume when she
chose.

Even with Miss Burgoyne's grudgingly promised assistance, Lionel still
remained unaccountably perturbed about that visit of Lady Cunyngham and
her daughter; and when on the Saturday evening he first became
aware--through the confused glare of the footlights--that the two ladies
had come into the box he had secured for them, it seemed to him as
though he were responsible for every single feature of the performance.
As for himself, he was at his best, and he knew it; he sang, 'The starry
night brings