he great
business she does is in husbands and wives."

"This then seems the day of the wives!" Mr. Mitchett interposed as he
became aware, the first, of the illustration the Duchess's image was in
the act of receiving. "Lady Fanny Cashmore!"--the butler was already
in the field, and the company, with the exception of Mrs. Donner, who
remained seated, was apparently conscious of a vibration that brought it
afresh, but still more nimbly than on Aggie's advent, to its feet.

VI

"Go to her straight--be nice to her: you must have plenty to say. YOU
stay with me--we have our affair." The latter of these commands the
Duchess addressed to Mr. Mitchett, while their companion, in obedience
to the former and affected, as it seemed, by an unrepressed familiar
accent that stirred a fresh flicker of Mitchy's grin, met the new
arrival in the middle of the room before Mrs. Brookenham had had time
to reach her. The Duchess, quickly reseated, watched an instant the
inexpressive concussion of the tall brother and sister; then while
Mitchy again subsided into his place, "You're not, as a race,
clever, you're not delicate, you're not sane, but you're capable of
extraordinary good looks," she resumed. "Vous avez parfois la grande
beaute."

Mitchy was much amused. "Do you really think Petherton has?"

The Duchess withstood it. "They've got, both outside and in, the same
great general things, only turned, in each, rather different ways, a
way safer for him as a man, and more triumphant for her as--whatever you
choose to call her! What CAN a woman do," she richly mused, "with such
beauty as that--?"

"Except come desperately to advise with Mrs. Brook"--Mitchy undertook to
complete her question--"as to the highest use to make of it? But see,"
he immediately added, "how perfectly competent to instruct her our
friend now looks." Their hostess had advanced to Lady Fanny with an
outstretched hand but with an eagerness of greeting merged a little
in the sweet predominance of wonder as well as in the habit, at such
moments most perceptible, of the languid lily-bend. Nothing in general
could have been less conventionally poor than the kind of reception
given in Mrs. Brookenham's drawing-room to the particular element--the
element of physical splendour void of those disparities that make the
question of others tiresome--comprised in Lady Fanny's presence. It
was a place in which, at all times, before interesting objects, the
unanimous occup