he ventured.

"Yes. Tommy will be helplessly poor if she does not leave him her money.
And she won't if he makes her angry. She is very determined. She will
leave it to an awful cousin if she gets in a rage. And Tommy is not
clever. He could never earn his living. Neither could Jane. They could
NEVER marry. You CAN'T defy relatives, and marry on nothing, unless you
are a character in a book."

"Has she liked Lady Jane in the past?" Miss Vanderpoel asked, as if
she was, mentally, rapidly going over the ground, that she might quite
comprehend everything.

"Yes. She used to make rather a pet of her. She didn't like me. She was
taken by Jane's meek, attentive, obedient ways. Jane was born a sweet
little affectionate worm. Lady Alanby can't hate her, even now. She just
pushes her out of her path."

"Because?" said Betty Vanderpoel.

Mary prefaced her answer with a brief, half-embarrassed laugh.

"Because of YOU."

"Because she thinks----?"

"I don't see how she can believe he has much of a chance. I don't think
she does--but she will never forgive him if he doesn't make a try at
finding out whether he has one or not."

"It is very businesslike," Betty made observation.

Mary laughed.

"We talk of American business outlook," she said, "but very few of
us English people are dreamy idealists. We are of a coolness and a
daring--when we are dealing with questions of this sort. I don't think
you can know the thing you have brought here. You descend on a dull
country place, with your money and your looks, and you simply STAY and
amuse yourself by doing extraordinary things, as if there was no London
waiting for you. Everyone knows this won't last. Next season you will
be presented, and have a huge success. You will be whirled about in
a vortex, and people will sit on the edge, and cast big strong lines,
baited with the most glittering things they can get together. You won't
be able to get away. Lady Alanby knows there would be no chance for
Tommy then. It would be too idiotic to expect it. He must make his try
now."

Their eyes met again, and Miss Vanderpoel looked neither shocked nor
angry, but an odd small shadow swept across her face. Mary, of course,
did not know that she was thinking of the thing she had realised so
often--that it was not easy to detach one's self from the fact that
one was Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter. As a result of it here one was
indecently and unwillingly disturbing the lives of innocen