r development at this
extraordinary information.

"By Jove!" he cried, "you don't mean that, Miss--Mademoiselle--I am so
awfully stupid I never heard--that is to say I ain't at all clever at
foreign names."

"Oh, never mind," cried Bice; "neither am I. But yours is delightful; it
is so easy, Milord. Ought I to say Milord?"

"Oh," cried Montjoie, a little confused. "No; I don't think so--people
don't as a rule."

"Lord Montjoie, that is right? I like always to know----"

"So do I," said Montjoie; "it's always best to ask, ain't it, and then
there can be no mistakes? But you don't mean to say _that_? You here
yesterday and all the time? I shouldn't think you could have been hid.
Not the kind of person, don't you know."

"I can't tell about being the kind of person. It has been fun," said
Bice; "sometimes I have seen you all coming, and waited till there was
just time to fly. I like leaving it till the last moment, and then there
is the excitement, don't you know."

"By Jove, what fun!" said Montjoie. He was not clever enough, few people
are, to perceive that she had mimicked himself in tone and expression.
"And I might have caught you any day," he cried. "What a muff I have
been."

"If I had allowed myself to be caught I should have been a greater--what
do you call it? You wear beautiful things to do your smoking in, Lord
Montjoie; what is it? Velvet? And why don't you wear them to
dinner?--you would look so much more handsome. I am very fond myself of
beautiful clothes."

"Oh, by Jove!" cried Montjoie again, with something like a blush.
"You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody
sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of
careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very
much upon this smoking-suit which had not, at the Hall, received the
applause it deserved.

"You go and smoke like that among other men? Yes, I perceive," said
Bice, "you are just like women, there is no difference. We put on our
pretty things for other ladies, because you cannot understand them; and
you do the same."

"Oh, come now, Miss---- Forno-Populo! you don't mean to tell me that you
got yourself up like that for the sake of the ladies?" cried the young
man.

"For whom, then?" said Bice, throwing up her head; but afterwards, with
the instinct of a young actress, she remembered her _role_, which it was
fun to carry out thoroughly. She laughed. "You are the most cl