hed, when he had
done laughing, laying meditative hands on his knees and gazing into the
fire.

'I tell you I have seen it,' said Lord Rupert, waxing combative, and
slapping the leg he was nursing with emphasis. 'The last time I went to
see Desforets in Paris the theatre was crammed, and the
house--theatrically speaking--_ice_. They received her in dead
silence--they gave her not one single recall--and they only gave her a
clap, that I can remember, at those two or three points in the play
where clap they positively must or burst. They go to see her--but they
loathe her--and they let her know it.'

'Bah!' said his opponent, 'it is only because they are tired of her.
Her vagaries don't amuse them any longer--they know them by heart.
And--by George! she has some pretty rivals too, now!' he added
reflectively,--'not to speak of the Bernhardt.'

'Well, the Parisians _can_ be shocked,' said Count Wielandt in excellent
English, bending forward so as to get a good view of his hostess. 'They
are just now especially shocked by the condition of English morals!'

The twinkle in his eye was irresistible. The men, understanding his
reference to the avidity with which certain English aristocratic
scandals had been lately seized upon by the French papers, laughed
out--so did Lady Aubrey. Madame de Netteville contented herself with a
smile.

'They profess to be shocked, too, by Renan's last book,' said the editor
from the other side of the room.

'Dear me!' said Lady Aubrey, with meditative scorn, fanning herself
lightly the while, her thin but extraordinarily graceful head and neck
thrown out against the golden brocade of the cushion behind her.

'Oh! what so many of them feel in Renan's case, of course,' said Madame
de Netteville, 'is that every book he writes now gives a fresh opening
to the enemy to blaspheme. Your eminent freethinker can't afford just
yet, in the present state of the world, to make himself socially
ridiculous. The cause suffers.'

'Just my feeling,' said young Evershed calmly. 'Though I mayn't care a
rap about him personally, I prefer that a man on my own front bench
shouldn't make a public ass of himself if he can help it--not for his
sake, of course, but for mine!'

Robert looked at Catherine. She sat upright by the side of Lady Aubrey;
her face, of which the beauty to-night seemed lost in rigidity, pale and
stiff. With a contraction of heart he plunged himself into the
conversation. On his road home