Lord Adder. I confessed to him
and ten others. She is a dear, she's ticklish, and at eighty-four she
laughed! She looked into my eyes and saw a field with never a man in
it--just the shadow of a man. She admitted the ten cancelled the one,
and exactly named to me, by comparison with the erring Amy, the sinner
I am and must be, if I 'm to live. So, dear, the end of it is,' and Mrs.
Lawrence put her fingers to a silken amber bow at Aminta's throat, and
squared it and flattened it with dainty precision, speaking on under
dropped eyelids, intent upon her work, 'Lady de Culme will be happy to
welcome you whenever it shall suit the Countess of Ormont to accompany
her disreputable friend. But what can I do, dear?' She raised her lids
and looked beseechingly. 'I was born with this taste for the ways and
games and style of men. I hope I don't get on badly with women; but if I
'm not allowed to indulge my natural taste, I kick the stable-boards and
bite the manger.'

Aminta threw her arms round her, and they laughed their mutual peal.

Caressing her still, Aminta said: 'I don't know whether I embrace a
boy.'

'That idea comes from a man!' said Mrs. Lawrence. It was admitted. The
secretary was discussed.

Mrs. Lawrence remarked: 'Yes, I like talking with him; he's bright. You
drove him out of me the day I saw him. Doesn't he give you the idea of a
man who insists on capturing you and lets it be seen he doesn't care two
snaps of a finger?'

Aminta petitioned on his behalf indifferently: 'He 's well bred.'

She was inattentive to Mrs. Lawrence's answer. The allusion of the
Queen of Blondes had stung her in the unacknowledged regions where women
discard themselves and are most sensitive.

'Decide on coming soon to Lady de Culme,' said Mrs. Lawrence. 'Now that
her arms are open to you, she would like to have you in them. She is
old--. You won't be rigorous? no standing on small punctilios?

She would call, but she does not--h'm, it is M. le Comte that she does
not choose to--h'm. But her arms are open to the countess. It ought to
be a grand step. You may be assured that Lady Charlotte Eglett would not
be taken into them. My great-aunt has a great-aunt's memory. The Ormonts
are the only explanation--if it 's an apology--she can offer for the
behaviour of the husband of the Countess of Ormont. You know I like him.
I can't help liking a man who likes me. Is that the way with a boy, Mr.
Secretary? I must have another talk with t