hty
cap, as vigorous, shrewd, and individual a type of English middle age
as could be found. The room behind her and the second and third
drawing-rooms were brilliantly lighted. Mr. Wynnstay was enjoying a
cigar in peace in the smoking-room, while his wife and nephew were
awaiting the arrival of the evening's guests upstairs.

Lady Charlotte's mind had been evidently much perturbed by the
conversation with her nephew of which we are merely describing the
latter half. She was laboring under an uncomfortable sense of being
hoist with her own petard--an uncomfortable memory of a certain warning
of her husband's, delivered at Murewell.

'And now,' said Mr. Flaxman, 'having confessed in so many words that
you have done your best to bring me up to the fence, will you kindly
recapitulate the arguments why in your opinion I should not jump it?'

'Society, amusement, flirtation, are one thing,' she replied with
judicial imperativeness, 'marriage is another. In these democratic days
we must know everybody; we should only marry our equals.'

The instant, however, the words were out of her mouth, she regretted
them. Mr. Flaxman's expression changed.

'I do not agree with you,' he said calmly, 'and you know I do not. You
could not, I imagine, have relied much upon _that_ argument.'

'Good gracious, Hugh!' cried Lady Charlotte crossed, 'you talk as if I
were really the old campaigner some people suppose me to be. I have been
amusing myself--I have liked to see you amused. And it is only the last
few weeks, since you have begun to devote yourself so tremendously, that
I have come to take the thing seriously at all. I confess, if you like,
that I have got you into the scrape--now I want to get you out of it!
I am not thin-skinned, but I hate family unpleasantnesses--and you know
what the Duke will say.'

'The Duke be--translated!' said Flaxman, coolly. 'Nothing of what you
have said or could say on this point, my dear aunt, has the smallest
weight with me. But Providence has been kinder to you and the Duke than
you deserve. Miss Leyburn does not care for me, and she does care--or I
am very much mistaken--for somebody else.'

He pronounced the words deliberately, watching their effect upon her.

'What, that Oxford nonentity, Mr. Langham, the Elsmeres' friend?
Ridiculous! What attraction could a man of that type have for a girl of
hers?'

'I am not bound to supply an answer to that question,' replied her
nephew. 'However, he