are
homicidal. If I come down on them I shall bring an action.'

'I thought you had all left town?' said Lady Helen.

'Who can make plans with a Government in power pledged to every sort
of villainy and public plunder?' said the old man testily. 'I
suppose Varley's there to-night, helping to vote away my property and
Fauntleroy's.'

'Some of his own, too, if you please!', said Lady Helen, smiling. 'Yes,
I suppose he is waiting for the division, or he would be here.'

'I wonder why Providence blessed _me_ with such a Radical crew of
relations?' remarked the Duke. 'Hugh is a regular Communist. I never
heard such arguments in my life. And as for any idea of standing by
his order----' The old man shook his bald head and shrugged his small
shoulders with almost French vivacity. He had been handsome once, and
delicately featured, but now the left eye drooped, and the face had a
strong look of peevishness and ill-health.

'Uncle,' interposed Lady Helen, 'let me introduce you to my two great
friends, Miss Leyburn, Miss Rose Leyburn.'

The Duke bowed, looked at them through a pair of sharp eyes, seemed to
cogitate inwardly whether such a name had ever been known to him, and
turned to his nephew.

'Get me out of this, Hugh, and I shall be obliged to you. Young people
may risk it, but if _I_ broke I shouldn't mend.'

And still grumbling audibly about the floor, he hobbled off toward the
picture gallery. Mr. Flaxman had only time for a smiling backward glance
at Rose.

'Have you given my pretty boy a dance?'

'Yes,' she said, but with as much stiffness as she might have shown to
his uncle.

'That's over,' said Lady Helen with relief. 'My uncle hardly meets any
of us now without a spar. He has never forgiven my father for going over
to the Liberals. And then he thinks we none of us consult him enough. No
more we do--except Aunt Charlotte. _She's_ afraid of him!'

'Lady Charlotte afraid!' echoed Rose.

'Odd, isn't it? The Duke avenges a good many victims on her, if they
only knew!'

Lady Helen was called away, and Rose was left standing, wondering what
had happened to her partner.

Opposite, Mr. Flaxman was pushing through a doorway, and Lady Florence
was again on his arm. At the same time she became conscious of a morsel
of chaperon's conversation such as, by the kind contrivances of fate, a
girl is tolerably sure to bear under similar circumstances.

The debutante's good looks, Hugh Flaxman's apparent susceptib