she reseated herself a few chairs lower
down.

"It does seem beastly unfair," she said in a low voice to her sister,
"that a girl such as that should be so awfully good-looking. She ought
to have a turned-up nose."

"Thank you," said Mary, "I have a turned-up nose myself, and I've got
nothing to balance it."

"Oh, I didn't mean a nice turned-up nose like yours," said Jane; "I
meant an ugly one. Of course Lady Alanby wants her for Tommy." And her
manner was not resigned.

"What she, or anyone else for that matter," disdainfully, "could want
with Tommy, I don't know," replied Mary.

"I do," answered Jane obstinately. "I played cricket with him when I
was eight, and I've liked him ever since. It is AWFUL," in a smothered
outburst, "what girls like us have to suffer."

Lady Mary turned to look at her curiously.

"Jane," she said, "are you SUFFERING about Tommy?"

"Yes, I am. Oh, what a question to ask in a ballroom! Do you want me to
burst out crying?"

"No," sharply, "look at the Prince. Stare at that fat woman curtsying to
him. Stare and then wink your eyes."

Lady Alanby was talking about Mount Dunstan.

"Lord Dunholm has given us a lead. He is an old friend of mine, and he
has been talking to me about it. It appears that he has been looking
into things seriously. Modern as he is, he rather tilts at injustices,
in a quiet way. He has satisfactorily convinced himself that Lord Mount
Dunstan has been suffering for the sins of the fathers--which must be
annoying."

"Is Lord Dunholm quite sure of that?" put in Sir Nigel, with a
suggestively civil air.

Old Lady Alanby gave him an unencouraging look.

"Quite," she said. "He would be likely to be before he took any steps."

"Ah," remarked Nigel. "I knew Lord Tenham, you see."

Lady Alanby's look was more unencouraging still. She quietly and openly
put up her glass and stared. There were times when she had not the
remotest objection to being rude to certain people.

"I am sorry to hear that," she observed. "There never was any room for
mistake about Tenham. He is not usually mentioned."

"I do not think this man would be usually mentioned, if everything were
known," said Nigel.

Then an appalling thing happened. Lady Alanby gazed at him a few
seconds, and made no reply whatever. She dropped her glass, and turned
again to talk to Betty. It was as if she had turned her back on him, and
Sir Nigel, still wearing an amiable exterior, used internally some ba