you accept him?"

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I don't quite see how you could--under the circumstances."

"Oh, he'd only had two bottles of champagne," she said, purposely
misunderstanding him from pure joy of seeing him flounder.

"I didn't mean that," he went on. "But, anyway, his conscience
will reassert itself, and he'll probably propose again this
morning--ponderously."

"And you're afraid I might accept?"

"I'm sure you'd make a most charming step-mamma," he replied, "only--"

"Only what?"

"Only the--the others might object, mightn't they?"

"The others?"

"All the men you've married," he blurted out, "if you will have it."

"I see," she said meditatively. "And you don't want to run the 'dear
Bishop' in for another scandal."

"Of course, if you choose to put it that way--"

"It's the way you'd put it if you only had the pluck," she retorted.

"Are you awfully angry with me?" he asked, looking at her.

"Not a bit," she replied. "From your point of view it's quite
justifiable, I suppose, and I'm only considering the best way out of the
dilemma."

"Are there several?"

"There's only one that I care to choose."

"And that is?"

"I shall marry again."

"Good heavens! not--!"

"Not your father, no; some one else."

"But surely--!"

"You see," she continued calmly, ignoring his interruption, "if I marry
some one at once your father can't have any feeling of--shall we say
responsibility? And it'll not be necessary for me to go into what Miss
Matilda would call 'my shameful past.'"

"But I really couldn't allow--"

"Oh, I'm not going to marry you either, so you needn't be alarmed. Can't
you make some suggestions to help me out?"

"I am afraid you must excuse me," he said, fast becoming scandalised at
her matter-of-fact way of approaching the subject.

"Well, of course," she went on thoughtfully, "there are all your
father's chaplains, but they're young, and prone to take things
seriously. No, I don't think they'd do. And there's the butler. No, he
wouldn't answer, either."

"Perhaps Miss Matilda would lend you Professor Smith."

"No," she said, "I don't think I'd have the heart to deprive her of him.
On the whole, I think I'll marry Mr. Spotts. He's nice--and handy."

"But mightn't he have something to say?" began Banborough.

"Probably," admitted Violet; "but he generally does what he's told, and
as he isn't married to any one else, I dare say he'll prove amenable
when he