so exalted an
opinion of Montjoie," he said; and then, with a politic diversion of
which he was proud, "Would not your daughters favour us again? A comic
song in the present state of our feelings would be more than we could
bear."

"What a clever fellow he is after all!" said Jock to himself admiringly,
"how he can manage people and say the right thing at the right moment! I
dare say Lucy will tell me if I ask her," he said, quite irrelevantly,
as the lady, well pleased to hear her daughters appreciated, sailed
away. There was something in the complete sympathy of Mr. Derwentwater's
mind, even though it irritated, which touched him. He put the question
point blank to Lucy when he found an opportunity of speaking to her. "I
say, Lucy, where is Bice? You have got all the old fogeys about the
place, and she is not here," the boy said.

"Is that why you are glooming upon everybody so?" said the unfeeling
Lucy. "You cannot call your friend Lord Montjoie an old fogey, Jock. He
says you were such friends at school."

"I--friends!" cried Jock with disdain. "Why, he was nothing but a scug."

Thus Lucy, too, avoided the question; but it was not because she had any
real reluctance to speak of Bice, though this was what Jock could not
know.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY.

"I never sing," said the Contessa, with that serene smile with which she
was in the habit of accompanying a statement which her hearers knew to
be quite untrue. "Oh never! It is one of my possibilities which are
over--one of the things which you remember of me in--other days----"

"So far back as March," said Sir Tom; "but we all recognise that in a
lady's calendar that may mean a century."

"Put it in the plural, _mon ami_--centuries, that is more correct," said
the Contessa, with her dazzling smile.

"And might one ask why this sudden acceleration of time?" asked one of
the gentlemen who were always in attendance, belonging, so to speak, to
the Contessa's side of the party. She opened out her lovely hands and
gave a little shrug to her shoulders, and elevation of her eyebrows.

"It is easy to tell: but whether I shall tell you is another
question----"

"Oh, do, do, Countess," cried young Montjoie, who was somewhat rough in
his attentions, and treated the lady with less ceremony than a less
noble youth would have ventured upon. "Come, don't keep us all in
suspense. I must hear you, don't you know; all the other fellows hav