I always tell Alec she'll have
to marry one, and when she says she doesn't want to, 'My dear child,' I
say, 'you can't marry people you don't see!' And almost the only people
she ever sees at our house _are_ stockbrokers--except a few soldiers
who never have a penny."

Alec was the daughter, named after her distinguished godmother.

"It's quite gone out to be snobbish now," Lady Walmer continued in a
lower voice to Harry. "We're all only too glad to take all we can get in
exchange for anything we give!"

"And you don't call that snobbish?" said Harry.

"My dear, no!--of course, we give as little as possible. I talk like
this and yet I married for love--and you know the result! Walmer's
always gambling, always running after--goodness knows what--and leaves
me--not quite in the gutter, but certainly on the kerb!"

"Don't you want Alec to marry for love?"

"I'm afraid she'll have to, my dear--she's not very attractive. It's a
blessing she's an heiress. But if she's allowed to play hockey, and
skate, and fence, and dance, and the husband is fairly kind to her, I'm
sure she'll be happy--I mean, I have no idea of her marrying a duke,
Harry. I shall be satisfied if he's a charming man, and not too
selfish." She lowered her voice still more to add--"You know she likes
you, poor child, don't you?"

"You're making fun of me, dear Lady Walmer."

"No, I'm not.... Walmer's taken 'Flying Fish' again, and after Cowes
we're going for a long cruise. You must come with us. Her father will be
all right. He lets me have my own way about her. Well, aren't you
coming?"

"You're too frightfully kind, Lady Walmer, of course. But----"

"My dear boy, of course you're going to the Green Gate, but I wish you'd
listen to a woman of the world. That," she gave Valentia a piercing
glance, "can't go on for ever! You will find Romer making a row some
day, and that will be a bore for you. He's just the sort of man who
would."

Valentia, noticing their confidential tone and feeling instinctively
that some treachery was in the air, looked once angrily at Harry and
then became apparently absorbed in the conversation of Vaughan.

Every one was talking volubly and gaily. Only Daphne and Captain Foster
were silent as they sat side by side looking at their plates. But they
were the only people who had found the dinner a real success.

Harry, who with all his _usage du monde_ was peculiarly subject to
sudden obscure impulses as of the primitive m