t of the house, you
know."

"Not really?"

"I know it for a positive fact. My sister has just got a new butler,
who left Lord Radclyffe's service the very day Philip de Mountford
first walked into the house."

"Old Parker, I remember him."

"He says Lord Radclyffe turned all the family out, bag and baggage.
They were so insolent to Philip."

"Then it's quite true?"

"That this Philip is the late Arthur de Mountford's son?"

"Quite true, I believe. Lord Radclyffe openly acknowledges it. He is
satisfied apparently."

"So are the lawyers, I understand."

"Oh! how do you do, Miss Harris? So glad to see you looking so well."

This, very pointedly, as Louisa, perfectly gowned, smiling serenely,
ascended the broad staircase.

"I have not been ill, Lady Keogh."

"Oh, no! of course not. And how is Mr. de Mountford?"

"You can ask him yourself."

And Louisa passed on to make way for Luke. And the same remarks and
the same question were repeated _ad infinitum_, until a popular waltz
played by the Hungarian gentlemen from Germany drew the fashionable
crowd round the musicians' platform.

Then Luke and Louisa contrived to make good their escape, and to reach
the half-landing above the heads of numerous young couples that
adorned the stairs. The hum of voices, the noise of shrill laughter,
and swish of skirts and fans masked their own whisperings. The couples
on the stairs were absorbed in their own little affairs; they were
sitting out here so that they might pursue their own flirtations.

Luke and Louisa could talk undisturbed.

They spoke of the flat in Exhibition Road and of the furniture that
Louisa had helped Edie to select.

"There are only a few odds and ends to get now," Louisa was saying,
"coal scuttles and waste-paper baskets; that sort of thing. I hope you
don't think that we have been extravagant. Edie, I am afraid, had
rather luxurious notions----"

"Poor Edie!"

"Oh! I don't think she minds very much. Life at Grosvenor Square in
the past month has not been over cheerful."

Then as Luke made no comment she continued in her own straightforward,
matter-of-fact way--the commonplace woman facing the ordinary duties
of life:

"Now that the flat is all in order, you can all move in whenever you
like--and then, Luke, you must begin to think of yourself."

"Of you, Lou," he said simply.

"Oh! there's nothing," she said, "to think about me."

"There you are wrong, Lou, and you must not talk lik