f your
favourites to try on us!"

Harold looked about as if it might have been after all a happy thought.
"Well, Nanda's the only girl."

"And one's sister doesn't count," said the Duchess.

"It's just because the thing's bad," Tishy resumed for Mrs. Brook's more
particular benefit, "that Lord Petherton's trying to wrest it."

Mrs. Brook's pale interest deepened. "Then it's a real hand-to-hand
struggle?"

"He says she shan't read it--she says she will."

"Ah that's because--isn't it, Jane?" Mrs. Brook appealed--"he so long
overlooked and advised her in those matters. Doesn't he feel by this
time--so awfully clever as he is--the extraordinary way she has come
out?"

"'By this time'?" Harold echoed. "Dearest mummy, you're too sweet. It's
only about ten weeks--isn't it, Mitch? You don't mind my saying that, I
hope," he solicitously added.

Mitchy had his back to him and, bending it a little, sat with head
dropped and knees pressing his hands together. "I don't mind any one's
saying anything."

"Lord, are you already past that?" Harold sociably laughed.

"He used to vibrate to everything. My dear man, what IS the matter?"
Mrs. Brook demanded. "Does it all move too fast for you?"

"Mercy on us, what ARE you talking about? That's what _I_ want to know!"
Mr. Cashmore vivaciously declared.

"Well, she HAS gone at a pace--if Mitchy doesn't mind," Harold
interposed in the tone of tact and taste. "But then don't they always--I
mean when they're like Aggie and they once get loose--go at a pace?
That's what _I_ want to know. I don't suppose mother did, nor Tishy, nor
the Duchess," he communicated to the rest; "but mother and Tishy and the
Duchess, it strikes me, must either have been of the school that knew,
don't you know? a deuce of a deal before, or of the type that takes it
all more quietly after."

"I think a woman can only speak for herself. I took it all quietly
enough both before and after," said Mrs. Brook. Then she addressed to
Mr. Cashmore with a small formal nod one of her lovely wan smiles. "What
I'm talking about, s'il vous plait, is marriage."

"I wonder if you know," the Duchess broke out on this, "how silly you
all sound! When did it ever, in any society that could call itself
decently 'good,' NOT make a difference that an innocent young creature,
a flower tended and guarded, should find from one day to the other her
whole consciousness changed? People pull long faces and look wonderful
looks and