st noticed
them there Kitty was in the very act of leading her away."

Lord John figured it a moment. "Lady Imber"--he ironically enlarged the
figure--"_can_ lead people away."

"Oh, dear Grace," his companion returned, "happens fortunately to be
firm!"

This seemed to strike him for a moment as equivocal. "Not against
_me_, however--you don't mean? You don't think she has a beastly
prejudice----?"

"Surely you can judge about it; as knowing best what may--or what
mayn't--have happened between you."

"Well, I try to judge"--and such candour as was possible to Lord John
seemed to sit for a moment on his brow. "But I'm in fear of seeing her
too much as I want to see her."

There was an appeal in it that Lady Sandgate might have been moved to
meet "Are you absolutely in earnest about her?"

"Of course I am--why shouldn't I be? But," he said with impatience, "I
want help."

"Very well then, that's what Lady Imber's giving you." And as it
appeared to take him time to read into these words their full sense,
she produced others, and so far did help him--though the effort was in
a degree that of her exhibiting with some complacency her own unassisted
control of stray signs and shy lights. "By telling her, by bringing it
home to her, that if she'll make up her mind to accept you the Duchess
will do the handsome thing. Handsome, I mean, by Kitty."

Lord John, appropriating for his convenience the truth in this, yet
regarded it as open to a becoming, an improving touch from himself.
"Well, and by _me_." To which he added with more of a challenge in it:
"But you really know what my mother will do?"

"By my system," Lady Sandgate smiled, "you see I've guessed. What your
mother will do is what brought you over!"

"Well, it's that," he allowed--"and something else."

"Something else?" she derisively echoed. "I should think 'that,' for an
ardent lover, would have been enough."

"Ah, but it's all one Job! I mean it's one idea," he hastened to
explain--"if you think Lady Imber's really acting on her."

"Mightn't you go and see?"

"I would in a moment if I hadn't to look out for another matter too."
And he renewed his attention to his watch. "I mean getting straight at
my American, the party I just mentioned------"

But she had already taken him up. "You too have an American and a
'party,' and yours also motors down----?"

"Mr. Breckenridge Bender." Lord John named him with a shade of elation.

She gaped at the ful