Howe has one."

"Is she a lady?" asked Mrs. Barberry.

"I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on
that."

"Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but
she closed them instead, and turned her head again to listen to Mrs.
Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the
conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance and
relief.

"I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather," Mrs. Barberry said;
"I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the Fort,
and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out, and not
one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to look!
And no more did I. So disgustingly real."

Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on her finger, and a
little smile, which was inconsistent with the veiling, hovered about her
lips.

"I was in England last year," she said; "I--I saw A Woman of Honour in
London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch
company in a Calcutta theatre! Imagination halts."

"Miss Howe did something with it," observed Mr. Lindsay. "That and one
or two other things carried one through last cold weather. One supported
even the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, conscious that there
was something to fall back upon. I remember I went to the State ball,
and cheerfully."

"That's saying a good deal, isn't it?" commented Dr. Livingstone,
vaguely aware of an ironical intention. "By Jove! yes."

"Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?" Mrs. Barberry said. "Such a
magnificent head. I adore him in Shakespeare."

"He knows the conventions, and uses them with security," Lindsay
replied, looking at Alicia; and she, with a little courageous air,
demanded--

"Is the story true?"

"The story of their relations? I suppose there are fifty. One of them
is."

Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a
reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she murmured to
Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about!"

"The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the effect that Mr.
Bradley, who is married, but unimportantly, made a heavy bet, when he
met this girl, that he would subdue her absolutely through her passion
for her art--I mean, of course, her affections--"

"My dear girl, we know what you mean," cried Mrs. Barberry, entering a
protest as it were, on behalf of the gentlemen.