"Very good, my lady."

When Joyselle was ushered in he found a beautiful person in a lacy white
tea-gown reading Maeterlinck on a satin _chaise-longue_.

He kissed her hand.

"I am glad to have an opportunity of seeing you, Lady Kingsmead," he
began abruptly, fixing his dark eyes on hers. "Our little private
correspondence has, I trust, been as pleasing to you as it has to me?"

"I have greatly enjoyed it."

"I am delighted. And they, the _fiances_, know nothing of it?"

"Of course not, Monsieur Joyselle." Her ladyship bowed with some dignity
as she spoke, for, besides being a very great artiste, this person with
the quiet air of authority was also a peasant.

"As I said, I rather doubted the wisdom of writing to you, but Theo is a
baby regarding money, and as you, of course, must consider the matter as
not altogether advantageous in the point of birth--for we have no birth,
my wife and I, we were just born,"--he smiled delightfully--"I thought
it only just to reassure your"--he was on the point of saying "mother's
heart," but thought better of it, and hastily substituted the word
"mind,"--"on this point of money. Theo, by the will of my dear friend,
Lady Isabel Clough-Hardy, does not come of age until he is twenty-five,
in something less than three years' time. But you now understand that I,
as guardian, am prepared to do all I can for the two dear children."

He _was_ handsome, the Duchess was right. And he was beautifully
dressed. And he would play for her guests after dinner.

Lady Kingsmead held out her jewelled hand.

"I am very glad that it happened," she said sweetly. "Theo's a dear
boy, and seems to make my little girl very happy."

"Yes, they seem happy. Ah--is this Tommy?"

It was. A spick-and-span Tommy, with very wet hair and a nervous smile;
a Tommy with cold hands and a curious twitching behind his knees. For he
had come to Olympus to see a god.

Joyselle held out his big, strong hand and Tommy's disappeared in it.
Thus, sometimes, are friendships made.

"I say--you _can_ play," stammered the boy. "I--it is glorious."

"You love music, Brigitte says."

"Don't I just! She says you'll play for me some time."

Tommy's small, greenish eyes were wet with irrepressible tears of
adoration.

Joyselle rose. "Come with me to my room now, Tommy, and I will play for
you. _Vous permettez, madame?_"

Lady Kingsmead bowed graciously, but when the door closed, frowned with
disgust, and putting Mae