lady _there_, I can
tell you, Prince!" she said, with a giggle that just escaped being a
sob. "I hope you will come to my ball at Dornock Castle next August, in
the Games Week, your Highness; all the men in kilts and mostly with
titles; our own family pipers, never less than six, playing for the
reels. My daughter has taken lessons, and I tell you she can give points
to some of those Calvanistic cats with Macs to their names, and a lot of
rot about clans, who think just because they're Scotch they're
_everybody_. Why, some of the old nobility up there have got such poor,
degenerated taste in decoration, they have nasty plaid carpets and
curtains all over their houses. _We_ had a firm from Paris send their
best men to do our castle over new from cellar to attic, Empire and
Louis. It's an example to some of those stuck-up Scotch earls and their
prim countesses. If _I_ had a title I'd live up to it!"

"You seem to do very well without," Vanno said.

"Well, we like to show them what's what. And I shouldn't wonder if my
daughter would attract one into the family some day. But talking of
titles, here comes the Viscount and Viscountess Dauntrey and that
gentleman friend of theirs who may be a king any minute. There's a
foreign Marquis and an Englishman with them, and some pretty girls, so
maybe things will begin to wake up a bit."

Vanno turned in the direction of her glittering eyes, and saw Mary Grant
approaching with a large party; three over-dressed, over-painted,
over-jewelled women; the Maharajah of Indorwana, scintillating with
decorations; six French officers in uniform, and eight other men. The
little brown Indian royalty was walking with Mary, clinging closely to
her side, seeing no one but her, and trying ostentatiously to "cut out"
Dom Ferdinand, who kept almost equally near on the other side. Mary, as
she waited for Lady Dauntrey to be boisterously greeted by host and
hostess, smiled gently and softly from one man to the other, as if she
wished to be kind to both, and was pleased with their attentions.

So, indeed, she was pleased. It was nice to be admired. Men were amusing
novelties in her life. She thought them most entertaining creatures, and
quaintly different in all their ways from women. She was charmed with
her own dress and the lovely filet of diamond laurel leaves which she
had bought at the shop of the nice jeweller who was so kind. She had
smiled and nodded to her image in the mirror before leaving