te?"

"To a certain extent, yes," Jane admitted, after a moment's hesitation.

"Chaperoned?"

"Pooh! You know I finished with all that sort of rubbish years ago,
mother."

"I am informed that Mr. Tallente is a married man."

Jane flinched a little for the first time.

"All the world knows that," she answered. "He married an American, one
of William Hunter's daughters."

"Who has now, I understand, left him?" Lady Jane shrugged her shoulders.

"I do not discuss Mr. Tallente's matrimonial affairs with him."

"Surely," her mother remarked acidly, "in view of your growing intimacy
they are of some interest to you both?"

Jane was silent for a moment.

"Just what have you come to say, mother?" she asked, looking up at her,
clear-eyed and composed. "Better let's get it over."

The Duchess cleared her throat.

"Jane," she said, "we have become reconciled, your father and I, against
our wills, to your strange political views and the isolation in which
you choose to live, but when your eccentricities lead you to a course of
action which makes you the target for scandal, your family protests. I
have come to beg that this intimacy of yours with Mr. Tallente should
cease."

"Mother," Jane replied, "for years after I left the schoolroom I
subjected myself to your guidance in these matters. I went through
three London seasons and made myself as agreeable as possible to
whatever you brought along and called a man. At the end of that time I
revolted. I am still in revolt. Mr. Tallente interests me more than
any man I know and I shall not give up my friendship with him."

"Your aunt tells me that Colonel Fosbrook wants to marry you."

"He has mentioned the fact continually," Jane assented. "Colonel
Fosbrook is a very pleasant person who does not appeal to me in the
slightest as a husband."

"The Fosbrooks are one of our oldest families," the Duchess said
severely. "Arnold Fosbrook is very wealthy and the connection would be
most desirable. You are twenty-nine years old, Jane, and you ought to
marry. You ought to have children and bring them up to defend the order
in which you were born."

"Mother dear," Jane declared, smiling, "this conversation had better
cease. Thanks to dear Aunt Jane, I have an independent fortune,
Woolhanger, and my little house here. I have adopted an independent
manner of life and I have not the least idea of changing it. You have
three other daughters and they have all married to your co