'Oh, what a hateful life! Almost half a century of lies and hypocricies
and prevarications and meannesses! For what? For the glory of an empty
name; and for a fortune that may slip from my dead hand to become the
prey of rogues and adventurers. Who can forecast the future?'




CHAPTER XXV.

CARTE BLANCHE.


Lady Kirkbank's house in Arlington Street was known to half fashionable
London as one of the pleasantest houses in town; and it was known by
repute only, to the other half of fashionable London, as a house whose
threshold was not to be crossed by persons with any regard for their own
dignity and reputation. It was not that Lady Kirkbank had ever actually
forfeited her right to be considered an honest woman and a faithful
wife. People who talked of the lady and her set with a contemptuous
shrug of the shoulders and a dubious elevation of the eyebrows were
ready, when hard pushed in argument, to admit that they knew of no
actual harm in Lady Kirkbank, no overt bad behaviour.

'But--well,' said the punctilious half of society, the Pejinks and
Pernickitys, the Picksomes and Unco-Goods, 'Lady Kirkbank is--Lady
Kirkbank; and I would not allow my girls to visit her, don't you know.'
'Lady Kirkbank is received, certainly,' said a severe dowager. 'She
goes to very good houses. She gets tickets for the Royal enclosure. She