SUDLEY. [_Suspicious and distrustful._] And may I ask _who_ Mrs.
Karslake is?

MISS HENEAGE. [_With confidence._] She was a Deane.

SUDLEY. [_Walking about the room, sorry to be obliged to concede good
birth to any but his own blood._] Oh, oh--well, the Deanes are
extremely nice people. [_Approaching the table._] Was her father J.
William Deane?

MISS HENEAGE. [_Nodding, still more secure._] Yes.

SUDLEY. [_Giving in with difficulty._] The family is an old one. J.
William Deane's daughter? Surely he left a very considerable--

MISS HENEAGE. Oh, fifteen or twenty millions.

SUDLEY. [_Determined not to be dazzled._] If I remember rightly she
was brought up abroad.

MISS HENEAGE. In France and England--and I fancy brought up with a
very gay set in very gay places. In fact she is what is called a
"sporty" woman.

SUDLEY. [_Always ready to think the worst._] We might put up with
that. But you don't mean to tell me Philip has the--the--assurance to
marry a woman who has been divorced by--

MISS HENEAGE. Not at all. Cynthia Karslake divorced her husband.

SUDLEY. [_Gloomily, since he has less fault to find than he
expected._] She divorced him! Ah!

[_He seeks the consolation of his tea._

MISS HENEAGE. The suit went by default. And, my dear William, there
are many palliating circumstances. Cynthia was married to Karslake
only seven months. There are no-- [_Glancing at_ GRACE] no hostages to
Fortune! Ahem!

SUDLEY. [_Still unwilling to be pleased._] Ah! What sort of a young
woman is she?

GRACE. [_With the superiority of one who is not too popular._] Men
admire her.

MISS HENEAGE. She's not conventional.

MRS. PHILLIMORE. [_Showing a faint sense of justice._] I am bound to
say she has behaved discreetly ever since she arrived in this house.

MISS HENEAGE. Yes, Mary--but I sometimes suspect that she exercises a
degree of self-control--

SUDLEY. [_Glad to have something against some one._] She claps on the
lid, eh? And you think that perhaps some day she'll boil over? Well,
of course fifteen or twenty millions--but who's Karslake?

GRACE. [_Very superciliously._] He owns Cynthia K. She's the famous
mare.

MISS HENEAGE. He's Henry Karslake's son.

SUDLEY. [_Beginning to make the best of fifteen millions-in-law._]
Oh!--Henry!--Very respectable family. Although I remember his father
served a term in the Senate. And so the wedding is to be to-morrow?

MRS. PHILLIMORE. [_Assenting._] To-morr