"I'm rather in luck for my dinner to-night," said Lady Blanchemain.
"I've got Agnes Scope, the niece of the Duke of Wexmouth. She arrived
here this morning with her aunt, Lady Louisa. Of course I'm putting you
next to her. As, besides being an extremely nice girl and an heiress,
she's an ardent pervert to Romanism,--well, a word to the wise."

"Yes, I know her," said John. "We don't get on a bit. She moves on far
too high a plane for a groundling like me. She's intellectual and
earnest, and my ignorance and light-mindedness wound her to the quick.
She'll end, as I've told her to her face, by writing books,--serious
novels, probably,--which she'll illuminate with beautiful irrelevant
quotations from Browning and Cardinal Newman."

"Bother," said Lady Blanchemain. "You're perverse."

"Besides," said John, "she's engaged."

"Engaged--?" faltered Lady Blanchemain.

"Yes--to an intellectual and earnest man, named Blake--Bernard Blake--a
grandson of the famous Blake of Cambridge."

Lady Blanchemain fixed him with darkening eyes.

"Are you sure?" she pleaded.

"I saw it officially stated in the _Morning Post_," was John's
relentless answer.

"What a nuisance," said Lady Blanchemain, fanning. Her fan was of amber