s much as a quiver of an eyelash.

"No," said he. "They have not given me much time. They took me off to
the country--to the Robert Wallings'."

"Ah," said Mrs. Alden; and Montague, struggling to make conversation,
inquired, "Do you know Mr. Walling?"

"Quite well," said the other, placidly. "I used to be a Walling myself,
you know."

"Oh," said Montague, taken aback; and then added, "Before you were
married?"

"No," said Mrs. Alden, more placidly than ever, "before I was divorced."

There was a dead silence, and Montague sat gasping to catch his breath.
Then suddenly he heard a faint subdued chuckle, which grew into open
laughter; and he stole a glance at Mrs. Alden, and saw that her eyes
were twinkling; and then he began to laugh himself. They laughed
together, so merrily that others at the table began to look at them in
perplexity.

So the ice was broken between them; which filled Montague with a vast
relief. But he was still dimly touched with awe--for he realized that
this must be the great Mrs. Billy Alden, whose engagement to the Duke
of London was now the topic of the whole country. And that huge diamond
ornament must be part of Mrs. Alden's million-dollar outfit of
jewellery!

The great lady volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously
that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning the
company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said she; and
continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes means that
they have quarrelled--and they don't always make it up afterward,
either. And sometimes other people quarrel--almost as bitterly as if
they had been married. Many a hostess has had her reputation ruined by
not keeping track of such things."

So Montague made the discovery that the great Mrs. Billy, though.
forbidding of aspect, was good-natured when she chose to be, and with a
pretty wit. She was a woman with a mind of her own--a hard-fighting
character, who had marshalled those about her, and taken her place at
the head of the column. She had always counted herself a personage
enough to do exactly as she pleased; through the course of the dinner
she would take up the decanter of Scotch, and make a pass to help
Montague--and then, when he declined, pour out imperturbably what she
wanted. "I don't like your brother," she said to him, a little later.
"He won't last; but he tells me you're different, so maybe I will like
you. Come and see me sometime, and