pe and Mrs.
Milbanke known to each other. Don't you think the idea brilliant?"

"Quite!--quite!" Serracauld looked up interestedly. "You are a man of
ideas, Barny!"

Lord Deerehurst said nothing, but again his eyeglass gleamed in the
uncertain light.

"What is Lady Frances Hope like?" Clodagh asked, suddenly withdrawing
her gaze from the massed gondolas that swayed in the musicians' lantern
light.

"Like?" Serracauld repeated vaguely. "How would you describe her,
uncle? The sort of woman who does everything twice as well as anybody
else--and at half the cost--eh?"

Lord Deerehurst gave one of his thin, metallic laughs.

"I always think," he said slowly, "that if Frances Hope had been the
child of a milkman instead of a marquis, she would have made a
singularly successful adventuress. No reflections cast upon the late
Sammy, my dear Barnard!"

He waved his white hand, and the dim, uncertain light gleamed on a
magnificent diamond ring.

Barnard laughed with a tolerant air.

"Rather an apt deduction!" he admitted. "I am inclined to agree with
you. Frances is just one of those shrewd, plain-looking, attractive
women who enjoy climbing steep ladders. It is rather a pity she was
born on the top rung. But I believe we have frightened Mrs. Milbanke!"

He turned suddenly and caught Clodagh's expression, as she sat forward,
listening intently.

At the mention of her name, she laughed quickly, and leant back against
the cushions of her seat.

"What do you mean?" she asked with a touch of constraint. "Am I as
childish as all that?"

They all looked at her; and Barnard gave an amused laugh.

"Come!" he cried banteringly. "There's no use telling me you weren't
just a little shocked."

"Shocked?"

"Yes, shocked." He nodded his head once or twice in genial gaiety.
"There's no denying that the word 'adventuress' has a daunting sound.
There was a danger signal in the very thought of a lady who
might--under any conditions--have been notorious. Come now, confess!"

Clodagh looked from his amused, quizzical eyes to Serracauld's
satirical, laughing ones, and a shadow of uncertainty--of
doubt--crossed her own bright face. There was an element in this social
atmosphere that she did not quite understand.

"Indeed----" she began hotly.

But Serracauld, whose glance had never left her own, bent forward
quickly, looking up into her face.

"I say, Mrs. Milbanke," he cried, "let's refute the insinuation of this
old inqui