or little
thing!--knows nobody here. Rachel's been scaring her. Must look after
her!"

And look after her he did. He was by no means an amusing companion.
Lazy, gentle, and ineffective, Doris quickly perceived that he was
entirely eclipsed by his wife, who, now that she was relieved of Mrs.
Meadows, was soon surrounded by a congenial company--the Home Secretary,
one or two other politicians, the old General, a literary Dean, Lord
Staines, a great racing man, Arthur Meadows, and one or two more. The
talk became almost entirely political--with a dash of literature. Doris
saw at once that Lady Dunstable was the centre of it, and she was not
long in guessing that it was for this kind of talk that people came to
Crosby Ledgers. Lady Dunstable, it seemed, was capable of talking like a
man with men, and like a man of affairs with the men of affairs. Her
political knowledge was astonishing; so, evidently, was her background
of family and tradition, interwoven throughout with English political
history. English statesmen had not only dandled her, they had taught
her, walked with her, written to her, and--no doubt--flirted with her.
Doris, as she listened to her, disliked her heartily, and at the same
time could not help being thrilled by so much knowledge, so much contact
with history in the making, and by such a masterful way, in a woman,
with the great ones of the earth. "What a worm she must think me!"
thought Doris--"what a worm she _does_ think me--and the likes of me!"

At the same time, the spectator must needs admit there was something
else in Lady Dunstable's talk than mere intelligence or mere
mannishness. There was undoubtedly something of "the good fellow," and,
through all her hard hitting, a curious absence--in conversation--of the
personal egotism she was quite ready to show in all the trifles of life.
On the present occasion her main object clearly was to bring out Arthur
Meadows--the new captive of her bow and spear; to find out what was in
him; to see if he was worthy of her inner circle. Throwing all
compliment aside, she attacked him hotly on certain statements--certain
estimates--in his lectures. Her knowledge was personal; the knowledge of
one whose father had sat in Dizzy's latest Cabinet, while, through the
endless cousinship of the English landed families, she was as much
related to the Whig as to the Tory leaders of the past. She talked
familiarly of "Uncle This" or "Cousin That," who had been apparentl