stion?"

"Because you know it requires two to play at that game, and I'm not
going to be cut." Mrs. Montacute Jones was a stout built but very short
old lady, with grey hair curled in precise rolls down her face, with
streaky cheeks, giving her a look of extreme good health, and very
bright grey eyes. She was always admirably dressed, so well dressed
that her enemies accused her of spending enormous sums on her toilet.
She was very old,--some people said eighty, adding probably not more
than ten years to her age,--very enthusiastic, particularly in
reference to her friends; very fond of gaiety, and very charitable.
"Why didn't you come to my ball?"

"Lord George doesn't care about balls," said Mary, laughing.

"Come, come! Don't try and humbug me. It had been all arranged that you
should come when he went to bed. Hadn't it now?"

"Something had been said about it."

"A good deal had been said about it, and he had agreed. Are you going
to tell me that he won't go out with you, and yet dislikes your going
out without him? Is he such a Bluebeard as that?"

"He's not a Bluebeard at all, Mrs. Jones."

"I hope not. There has been something about that German
Baroness;--hasn't there?"

"Oh dear no."

"I heard that there was. She came and took you and the brougham all
about London. And there was a row with Lady Selina. I heard of it."

"But that had nothing to do with my going to your party."

"Well, no; why should it? She's a nasty woman, that Baroness Banmann.
If we can't get on here in England without German Baronesses and
American she doctors, we are in a bad way. You shouldn't have let them
drag you into that lot. Women's rights! Women are quite able to hold
their own without such trash as that. I'm told she's in debt
everywhere, and can't pay a shilling. I hope they'll lock her up."

"She is nothing to me, Mrs. Jones."

"I hope not. What was it then? I know there was something. He doesn't
object to Captain De Baron; does he?"

"Object to him! Why should he object to Captain De Baron?"

"I don't know why. Men do take such fancies into their heads. You are
not going to give up dancing;--are you?"

"Not altogether. I'm not sure that I care for it very much."

"Oh, Lady George; where do you expect to go to?" Mary could not keep
herself from laughing, though she was at the same time almost inclined
to be angry with the old lady's interference. "I should have said that
I didn't know a young person in the wor