she any reason to complain of a lack of interest in her story (I had to
complain of a great deal too much interest in mine)--but it was for
Jenny that the highest honors were reserved; the most joy was over the
one sinner that repented.

Fillingford, of course, took her in to dinner. It was not in the man to
pay what are called "marked attentions" before the eyes of others, but
his manner to her was characterized by a pronounced friendliness and
deference; he seemed to be trying to atone for the coercion which he had
been compelled to exert earlier in the day. He did not fall into the
mistake of treating her acquiescence as a trifle or the case as merely
that of "cutting a cad," to use Aspenick's curtly contemptuous phrase.
He raised her action to the rank of an obligation conferred on her
neighbors and especially on himself. He was man of the world enough to
convey this impression without departing too far from the habitual
reserve of his demeanor.

Lady Aspenick looked at the pair through her eyeglasses; we had at last
exhausted the incident of the morning--though we had not settled the
precise degree of accidentality which attached to the collision between
her whip and Octon's face; under a veiled cross-examination she had
become rather vague about it--that may weigh a little in Octon's favor.

"It's a long while since I've seen Lord Fillingford so lively," she
remarked. "He seems to get on so well with Miss Driver. As a rule, you
know, we women despair of him."

"Has he such a bad character among you as that?"

"He seemed to have given himself up to being old long before he need.
He's only forty-three, I think." She laughed. "There, in my heart I
believe I'm matchmaking, like a true woman!"

"Yes, I believe you are. Well, these speculations are always
interesting."

"We're beginning to make them in the neighborhood, I can tell you, Mr.
Austin."

"And--knowing the neighborhood--I can believe you, Lady Aspenick."

"You've no special information?" she asked, laughing. "It would make me
so important!"

"Oh, you're important enough already--after this morning. And I know
nothing--absolutely nothing."

"You mean to say Miss Driver doesn't tell you----?"

"Actually she does not--and I'm not sure I should know if she did."

"Of course I'm only chaffing. But it would be rather--ideal."

"H'm. Forty-three may not be senile, but would you call it ideal? For a
romance?"

"Who's talking of romances? I'm on the