ul devotedness of the wealthy
heiress to her ideal of man. It had led her to make the acquaintance of
old Lady Dacier, at the house in town, where Constance Asper had
first met Percy; Mrs. Grafton Winstanley's house, representing neutral
territory or debateable land for the occasional intercourse of the upper
class and the climbing in the professions or in commerce; Mrs. Grafton
Winstanley being on the edge of aristocracy by birth, her husband,
like Mr. Quintin Manx, a lord of fleets. Old Lady Dacier's bluntness in
speaking of her grandson would have shocked Lady Wathin as much as it
astonished, had she been less of an ardent absorber of aristocratic
manners. Percy was plainly called a donkey, for hanging off and on with
a handsome girl of such expectations as Miss Asper. 'But what you can't
do with a horse, you can't hope to do with a donkey.' She added that
she had come for the purpose of seeing the heiress, of whose points
of person she delivered a judgement critically appreciative as a
horsefancier's on the racing turf. 'If a girl like that holds to it,
she's pretty sure to get him at last. It 's no use to pull his neck down
to the water.'

Lady Wathin delicately alluded to rumours of an entanglement, an
admiration he had, ahem.

'A married woman,' the veteran nodded. 'I thought that was off? She must
be a clever intriguer to keep him so long.'

'She is undoubtedly clever,' said Lady Wathin, and it was mumbled in her
hearing: 'The woman seems to have a taste for our family.'

They agreed that they could see nothing to be done. The young lady must
wither, Mrs. Warwick have her day. The veteran confided her experienced
why to Lady Wathin: 'All the tales you tell of a woman of that sort are
sharp sauce to the palates of men.'

They might be, to the men of the dreadful gilded idle class!

Mrs. Warwick's day appeared indefinitely prolonged, judging by Percy
Dacier's behaviour to Miss Asper. Lady Wathin watched them narrowly when
she had the chance, a little ashamed of her sex, or indignant rather
at his display of courtliness in exchange for her open betrayal of her
preference. It was almost to be wished that she would punish him by
sacrificing herself to one of her many brilliant proposals of marriage.
But such are women!--precisely because of his holding back he tightened
the cord attaching him to her tenacious heart. This was the truth. For
the rest, he was gracefully courteous; an observer could perceive the
c