ght sight of the little pile and asked
Alathea to bring them to me.

She did. One from Coralie was lying on top and one immediately under it
from Solonge de Clerte! Alathea saw that they were both in female
writing. The rest were bills and business.

"Do you permit me to open them?" I asked punctiliously.

"Of course," and she reddened. "Are you not master here? How absurd to
ask me!"

"It is not; you are Lady Thormonde, even if you are not my wife, and
have a right to courtesy."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Why did you put--'To Alathea from her husband' on the bracelets? You
are 'Sir Nicholas' and not my husband."

"It was a _betise_, a slip of the pen; I admit you are right," and
indifferently I opened Coralie's effusion, smiling over it. I put up my
hand as if to shade my eye, and looked at Alathea through the fingers.
She was watching me with an expression of slightly anxious interest. I
could almost have believed that she was _jealous_!

My triumph increased.

I removed my hand and appeared only to be intent upon Coralie's letter.

"Perhaps we each have friends which might bore the other, so when you
want to have parties tell me, and I will arrange to go out, and when I
want to, I will tell you. In that way we can never have any jars."

"Thank you, but I have no friends except the Duchesse, or very humble
people who don't want to come to parties."

"But you will be making plenty of new friends now. I have some which you
will meet out in the world which I daresay you won't care about, and
some who come and dine with me sometimes, who probably you would
dislike."

"Yes,--I know."

"How do you know?" I asked innocently, affecting surprise.

"I used to hear them when I was typing."

I smiled. I did not defend them.

"If you should chance to meet, would you be civil to them?"

"Of course, 'Coralie,' 'Odette,' and 'Alice,' the Duchesse has often
described them all! It was 'Coralie' who came to talk to you at
Versailles in the park, was it not?"

Her voice was contemptuously amused and indifferent, but her little
nostrils quivered. Underneath she was disturbed I knew.

"Yes, Coralie is charming, she knows more about how to put clothes on
becomingly than any other woman."

"Do they dine often? Because I could perhaps arrange to go and have my
music lesson with Monsieur Trani on those evenings, twice a week or
oftener?"

"You would refuse to meet them?" I pretended to be annoyed.

"Certainly