odour of tea pervaded the drawing-room, it was orange-flower pekoe,
and Mrs. O'Reilly was just handing one of the delicate Crown Derby
cups to her visitor, Miss Lena Houghton.

"What a shocking thing! Do you really mean it?" exclaimed Miss
Houghton. "Thank you, cream but no sugar; don't you know, Mrs.
O'Reilly, that it is only Low-Church people who take sugar nowadays?
But, really, now, about Mr. Zaluski? How did you find it out?"

"My dear, I am an old woman, and I have learnt in the course of a
wandering life to put two and two together," said Mrs. O'Reilly.
She had somehow managed to ignore middle age, and had passed from
her position of renowned beauty to the position which she now firmly
and constantly claimed of many years and much experience. "Of
course," she continued, "like every one else, I was glad enough to
be friendly and pleasant to Sigismund Zaluski, and as to his being a
Pole, why, I think it rather pleased me than otherwise. You see, my
dear, I have knocked about the world and mixed with all kinds of
people. Still, one must draw the line somewhere, and I confess it
gave me a very painful shock to find that he had such violent
antipathies to law and order. When he took Ivy Cottage for the
summer I made the General call at once, and before long we had
become very intimate with him; but, my dear, he's not what I thought
him--not at all!"

"Well now, I am delighted to hear you say that," said Lena Houghton,
with some excitement in her manner, "for it exactly fits in with
what I always felt about him. From the first I disliked that man,
and the way he goes on with Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If
they are not engaged they ought to be--that's all I can say."