or the Harlequin's window trick."

"You can be as frivolous as you please." Sternly. "Frivolity suits you
best, no doubt. I came in here a half an hour ago, having first almost
come to blows with your servant before being admitted,--showing me
plainly the man had received orders to allow no one in but the one
expected."

"That is an invaluable man, that Charles," murmurs her ladyship,
_sotto voce_. "I shall raise his wages. There is nothing like
obedience in a servant."

"I was standing there at that window, awaiting your arrival, when you
came, hurried to your boudoir, spent an intolerable time there with
Luttrell, and finally wound up your interview here by giving him a
billet, and permitting him to kiss your hands until you ought to have
been ashamed of yourself and him."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, lying _perdu_ in the
curtains and listening to what wasn't meant for you." Maliciously. "You
ought also to have been a detective. You have wasted your talents
frightfully. _Did_ Teddy kiss my hands?" Examining the little
white members with careful admiration. "Poor Ted! he might be tired of
doing so by this. Well,--yes; and--you were saying----"

"I insist," says Sir Penthony, wrathfully, "on knowing what Luttrell
was saying to you."

"I thought you heard."

"And why he is admitted when others are denied."

"My dear Sir Penthony, he is my cousin. Why should he not visit me if
he likes?"

"Cousins be hanged!" says Sir Penthony, with considerable more force
than elegance.

"No, no," says Cecil, smoothing a little wrinkle off the front of her
gown, "not always; and I'm sure I hope Tedcastle won't be. To my way of
thinking, he is quite the nicest young man I know. It would make me
positively wretched if I thought Marwood would ever have him in his
clutches. You,"--reflectively--"are my cousin too."

"I am,--and something more. You seem to forget that. Do you mean to
answer my question?"

"Certainly,--if I can. But do sit down, Sir Penthony. I am sure you
must be tired, you are so dreadfully out of breath. Have you come just
now, this moment, straight from Algiers? See, that little chair over
there is so comfortable. All my gentlemen visitors adore that little
chair. No? You won't sit down? Well----"

"Are you in the habit of receiving men so early?"

"I assure you," says Cecil, raising her brows with a gentle air of
martyrdom, and making a very melancholy gesture with one hand, "I
hardly know th