"Yes, the House of Commons still remains rather at the opposite
pole to the Kingdom of Heaven as regards entrance qualifications,"

observed Lady Caroline.
"There ought to be no difficulty about Youghal picking up a girl

with money," said Serena; "with his prospects he would make an
excellent husband for any woman with social ambitions."

And she half sighed, as though she almost regretted that a previous
matrimonial arrangement precluded her from entering into the

competition on her own account.
Francesca, under an assumption of languid interest, was watching

Lady Caroline narrowly for some hint of suppressed knowledge of
Youghal's courtship of Miss de Frey.

"Whom are you marrying and giving in marriage?"
The question came from George St. Michael, who had strayed over

from a neighbouring table, attracted by the fragments of small-talk
that had reached his ears.

St. Michael was one of those dapper bird-like illusorily-active
men, who seem to have been in a certain stage of middle-age for as

long as human memory can recall them. A close-cut peaked beard
lent a certain dignity to his appearance - a loan which the rest of

his features and mannerisms were continually and successfully
repudiating. His profession, if he had one, was submerged in his

hobby, which consisted of being an advance-agent for small
happenings or possible happenings that were or seemed imminent in

the social world around him; he found a perpetual and unflagging
satisfaction in acquiring and retailing any stray items of gossip

or information, particularly of a matrimonial nature, that chanced
to come his way. Given the bare outline of an officially announced

engagement he would immediately fill it in with all manner of
details, true or, at any rate, probable, drawn from his own

imagination or from some equallyexclusive source. The MORNING
POST might content itself with the mere statement of the

arrangement which would shortly take place, but it was St.
Michael's breathless little voice that proclaimed how the

contracting parties had originally met over a salmon-fishing
incident, why the Guards' Chapel would not be used, why her Aunt

Mary had at first opposed the match, how the question of the
children's religious upbringing had been compromised, etc., etc.,

to all whom it might interest and to many whom it might not.
Beyond his industriously-earned pre-eminence in this special branch

of intelligence, he was chiefly noteworthy for having a wife
reputed to be the tallest and thinnest woman in the Home Counties.

The two were sometimes seen together in Society, where they passed
under the collective name of St. Michael and All Angles.

"We are trying to find a rich wife for Courtenay Youghal," said
Serena, in answer to St. Michael's question.

"Ah, there I'm afraid you're a little late," he observed, glowing
with the importance of pendingrevelation; "I'm afraid you're a

little late," he repeated, watching the effect of his words as a
gardener might watch the development of a bed of carefully tended

asparagus. "I think the young gentleman has been before you and
already found himself a rich mate in prospect."

He lowered his voice as he spoke, not with a view to imparting
impressive mystery to his statement, but because there were other

table groups within hearing to whom he hoped presently to have the
privilege of re-disclosing his revelation.

"Do you mean - ?" began Serena.
"Miss de Frey," broke in St. Michael, hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly, fearful lest his

revelation should be forestalled, even in guesswork; "quite an
ideal choice, the very wife for a man who means to make his mark in

politics. Twenty-four thousand a year, with prospects of more to
come, and a charming place of her own not too far from town. Quite

the type of girl, too, who will make a good political hostess,
brains without being brainy, you know. Just the right thing. Of

course, it would be premature to make any definiteannouncement at
present - "

"It would hardly be premature for my partner to announce what she
means to make trumps," interrupted Lady Caroline, in a voice of

such sinistergentleness that St. Michael fled headlong back to his
own table.

"Oh, is it me? I beg your pardon. I leave it," said Serena.
"Thank you. No trumps," declared Lady Caroline. The hand was

successful, and the rubberultimately fell to her with a
comfortable margin of honours. The same partners cut together

again, and this time the cards went distinctly against Francesca
and Ada Spelvexit, and a heavily piled-up score confronted them at

the close of the rubber. Francesca was conscious that a certain
amount of rather erratic play on her part had at least contributed

to the result. St. Michael's incursion into the conversation had
proved rather a powerful distraction to her ordinarily sound

bridge-craft.
Ada Spelvexit emptied her purse of several gold pieces and infused

a corresponding degree of superiority into her manner.
"I must be going now," she announced; "I'm dining early. I have to

give an address to some charwomen afterwards."
"Why?" asked Lady Caroline, with a disconcerting directness that

was one of her most formidable characteristics.
"Oh, well, I have some things to say to them that I daresay they

will like to hear," said Ada, with a thin laugh.
Her statement was received with a silence that betokened profound

unbelief in any such probability.
"I go about a good deal among working-class women," she added.

"No one has ever said it," observed Lady Caroline, "but how
painfully true it is that the poor have us always with them."

Ada Spelvexit hastened her departure; the marred impressiveness of
her retreat came as a culminating discomfiture on the top of her

ill-fortune at the card-table. Possibly, however, the
multiplication of her own annoyances enabled her to survey

charwomen's troubles with increased cheerfulness. None of them, at
any rate, had spent an afternoon with Lady Caroline.

Francesca cut in at another table and with better fortune attending
on her, succeeded in winning back most of her losses. A sense of

satisfaction was distinctlydominant as she took leave of her
hostess. St. Michael's gossip, or rather the manner in which it

had been received, had given her a clue to the real state of
affairs, which, however slender and conjectural, at least pointed

in the desired direction. At first she had been horribly afraid
lest she should be listening to a definiteannouncement which would

have been the death-blow to her hopes, but as the recitation went
on without any of those assured little minor details which St.

Michael so loved to supply, she had come to the conclusion that it
was merely a piece of intelligent guesswork. And if Lady Caroline

had really believed in the story of Elaine de Frey's virtual
engagement to Courtenay Youghal she would have taken a malicious

pleasure in encouraging St. Michael in his confidences, and in
watching Francesca's discomfiture under the recital. The irritated

manner in which she had cut short the discussion betrayed the fact,
that, as far as the old woman's information went, it was Comus and

not Courtenay Youghal who held the field. And in this particular
case Lady Caroline's information was likely to be nearer the truth

than St. Michael's confidentgossip.
Francesca always gave a penny to the first crossing-sweeper or

match-seller she chanced across after a successful sitting at
bridge. This afternoon she had come out of the fray some fifteen

shillings to the bad, but she gave two pennies to a crossing-
sweeper at the north-west corner of Berkeley Square as a sort of

thank-offering to the Gods.
CHAPTER VIII

IT was a fresh rain-repentant afternoon, following a morning that
had been sultry and torrentially wet by turns; the sort of

afternoon that impels people to talk graciously of the rain as
having done a lot of good, its chief merit in their eyes probably

having been its recognition of the art of moderation. Also it was
an afternoon that invited bodily activity after the convalescent

languor of the earlier part of the day. Elaine had instinctively
found her way into her riding-habit and sent an order down to the

stables - a blessed oasis that still smelt sweetly of horse and hay