very bad now except my
Constant's _vol-au-vent_, which you don't seem to have tried; but
lovers are the worst of all. Though I like that young man,
Lightmark; he is a type that interests me; he seems----"

She looked round the room vaguely, as if the appropriate word might
be lurking in some angle of the apartment; finally, the epithet
proving difficult, she abandoned the search.

"_Il ira loin_!" she said tersely; "he flatters me discreetly, as they
did when I was young, before the Republic."

The silent, well-trained man handed round caviare and olives; Mary
trifled with some grapes, her brow knitted a little, thoughtfully.
Lady Garnett poured herself a glass of maraschino. When they were
left alone, the girl remarked abruptly:

"I am not sure whether I quite like Mr. Lightmark; he does not seem
to me sincere."

Lady Garnett lifted up her hands.

"Why should he be, my dear? sincerity is very trying. A decent
hypocrisy is the secret of good society. Your good, frank people are
very rude. If I am a wicked old woman, it is nobody's business to
tell me so but my director's."

Mary had risen, and had come over to the old lady's side.

"But then, you are not a wicked old woman, my aunt," she observed
gently.

"Ah!" she threw back, "how do you judge? Do me the justice to
believe, _cherie_, that, if I tell you a good deal, there is a good
deal, happily, which I don't tell you."

She pushed a box of cigarettes, which the man had placed on the
table, toward Rainham. He took one and lit it silently, absently,
without his accustomed protests; the girl looked up smiling.

"That means that you want your _tete-a-tete_, Aunt Marcelle? I know
the signal. Well, I will leave you. I want to try over that new
march of Liszt's; and I expect, by the time I have grappled with it,
you will be coming up for your coffee."

"You are a good girl," answered the elder lady, stroking her hand.
"Yes, run away and make music! When Philip and I have had enough
scandal and frivolity, we will come and find you; and you shall play
us a little of that strange person Wagner, who fascinates me, though
you may not believe it."

It was a habit of the house, on occasion of these triangular
dinner-parties, that Lady Garnett should remain with Rainham in the
interval which custom would have made him spend solitary over his
wine. It was a habit which Mary sacredly respected, although it
often amused her; and she knew it was one which her aunt val