to the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, marvelous yet
commonplace.

So her ladyship dismissed the topic as of no present interest, and
focused Miss Deane through her eye-glasses.

"Sir Arthur proposes to come home in June, I understand?" she inquired.

Iris was a remarkably healthy young woman. A large banana momentarily
engaged her attention. She nodded affably.

"You will stay with relatives until he arrives?" pursued Lady Tozer.

The banana is a fruit of simple characteristics. The girl was able to
reply, with a touch of careless hauteur in her voice:

"Relatives! We have none--none whom we specially cultivate, that is. I
will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go
straight to Helmdale, our place in Yorkshire."

"Surely you have a chaperon!"

"A chaperon! My dear Lady Tozer, did my father impress you as one who
would permit a fussy and stout old person to make my life miserable?"

The acidity of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not
accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on
the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was
impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like. Miss Iris
Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip. Not yet twenty-one, the only