ly
of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry
a woman. "Well, if it's a question of your otherwise suffering torments,
may I have another interview with the old lady?"

"Dear Mr. Bender, she's in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for
interviews, and you may have," Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, "as
many as you like."

"Oh, you must be there to protect me!"

"Then as soon as I return----!"

"Well,"--it clearly cost him little to say--"I'll come right round."

She joyously registered the vow. "Only meanwhile then, please, never a
word!"

"Never a word, certainly. But where all this time," Mr. Bender asked,
"is Lord John?"

Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young
woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway
to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and
simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of
a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes
had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the
gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: "Lady Grace must know."
At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the
visitor. "My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender."

The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation,
but she had urbanity to spare. "Of whom Lord John has told me," she
returned, "and whom I'm glad to see. Lord John," she explained to his
waiting friend, "is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big
Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if
you care to go out--!" She gave him in fine his choice.

But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn't
the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his
prudence. "Are there any pictures in the park?"

Lady Grace's facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more
play. "We find our park itself rather a picture."

Mr. Bender's own levity at any rate persisted. "With a big Temperance
school-feast?"

"Mr. Bender's a great judge of pictures," Lady Sandgate said as to
forestall any impression of excessive freedom.

"Will there be more tea?" he pursued, almost presuming on this.

It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. "Oh, there'll
be plenty of tea."

This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. "Well, Lady Grace, I'm after
pi