ld monde,
which would naturally attract attention through that? Why Miss Francie,"
Mr. Flack ever so blandly pursued, "you regularly TALKED as if you did."

"Did I talk a great deal?" asked Francie.

"Why most freely--it was too lovely. We had a real grand old jaw. Don't
you remember when we sat there in the Bois?"

"Oh rubbish!" Delia panted.

"Yes, and Mme. de Cliche passed."

"And you told me she was scandalised. And we had to laugh," he reminded
her--"it struck us as so idiotic. I said it was a high old POSE, and
I knew what to think of it. Your father tells me she's scandalised
now--she and all the rest of them--at the sight of their names at last
in a REAL newspaper. Well now, if you want to know, it's a bigger
pose than ever, and, as I said just now, it's too damned cheap. It's
THIN--that's what it is; and if it were genuine it wouldn't count. They
pretend to be shocked because it looks exclusive, but in point of fact
they like it first-rate."

"Are you talking about that old piece in the paper? Mercy, wasn't that
dead and buried days and days ago?" Delia quavered afresh. She hovered
there in dismay as well as in displeasure, upset by the news that her
father had summoned Mr. Flack to Paris, which struck her almost as
a treachery, since it seemed to denote a plan. A plan, and an
uncommunicated plan, on Mr. Dosson's part was unnatural and alarming;
and there was further provocation in his appearing to shirk the
responsibility of it by not having come up at such a moment with his
accomplice. Delia was impatient to know what he wanted anyway. Did
he want to drag them down again to such commonness--ah she felt the
commonness now!--even though it COULD hustle? Did he want to put Mr.
Flack forward, with a feeble flourish that didn't answer one of their
questions, as a substitute for the alienated Gaston? If she hadn't been
afraid that something still more uncanny than anything that had happened
yet might come to pass between her two companions in case of her leaving
them together she would have darted down to the court to appease her
conjectures, to challenge her father and tell him how particularly
pleased she should be if he wouldn't put in his oar. She felt liberated,
however, the next moment, for something occurred that struck her as a
sure proof of the state of her sister's spirit.

"Do you know the view I take of the matter, according to what your
father has told me?" Mr. Flack enquired. "I don't mean it