o of a smile touched her
cheek.

'Yes, my dear countess, that is the face I want for Lady de Culme
to-day,' said Mrs. Lawrence.' She likes a smiling face. Aunty--aunty has
always been good; she has never been prim. I was too much for her, until
I reflected that she was very old, and deserved to know the truth before
she left us; and so I went to her; and then she said she wished to see
the Countess of Ormont, because of her being my dearest friend. I fancy
she entertains an 'arriere' idea of proposing her flawless niece Gracey,
Marchioness of Fencaster, to present you. She 's quite equal to the
fatigue herself. You 'll rejoice in her anecdotes. People were virtuous
in past days: they counted their sinners. In those days, too, as I have
to understand, the men chivalrously bore the blame, though the women were
rightly punished. Now, alas! the initiative is with the women, and men
are not asked for chivalry. Hence it languishes. Lady de Culme won't hear
of the Queen of Blondes; has forbidden her these many years!'

Lord Ormont, to whom the lady's prattle was addressed, kept his visage
moveless, except in slight jerks of the brows.

'What queen?'

'You insist upon renewing my old, old pangs of jealousy, my dear lord!
The Queen of Cyprus, they called her, in the last generation; she fights
our great duellist handsomely.'

'My dear Mrs. Lawrence!'

'He triumphs finally, we know, but she beats him every round.'

'It 's only tattle that says the duel has begun.'

'May is the month of everlasting beauty! There 's a widower marquis now
who claims the right to cast the glove to any who dispute it.'

'Mrs. May is too good-looking to escape from scandal.'

'Amy May has the good looks of the Immortals.'

'She can't be thirty.'

'In the calendar of women she counts thirty-four.'

'Malignity! Her husband's a lucky man.'

'The shots have proved it.'

Lord Ormont nodded his head over the hopeless task of defending a woman
from a woman, and their sharp interchange ceased. But the sight of his
complacency in defeat told Aminta that he did not respect his fair
client: it drew a sketch of the position he allotted his wife before the
world side by side with this Mrs. Amy May, though a Lady de Culme was
persuaded to draw distinctions.

He had, however, quite complacently taken the dose intended for him by
Mrs. Lawrence, who believed that the system of gently forcing him was the
good one.

The ladies drove away in the afte