listened like one pelted by a storm, sure of his day to come at the
close of the two months. I gained his commendation by shunning the
metropolitan Balls, nor did my father press me to appear at them. It was
tacitly understood between us that I should now and then support him at
his dinner-table, and pass bowing among the most select of his great
ladies. And this I did, and I felt at home with them, though I had to
bear with roughnesses from one or two of the more venerable dames, which
were not quite proper to good breeding. Old Lady Kane, great-aunt of the
Marquis of Edbury, was particularly my tormentor, through her plain-
spoken comments on my father's legal suit; for I had to listen to her
without wincing, and agree in her general contempt of the Georges, and
foil her queries coolly, when I should have liked to perform Jorian
DeWitt's expressed wish to 'squeeze the acid out of her in one grip, and
toss her to the Gods that collect exhausted lemons.' She took
extraordinary liberties with me.

'Why not marry an Englishwoman? Rich young men ought to choose wives
from their own people, out of their own sets. Foreign women never get on
well in this country, unless they join the hounds to hunt the husband.'

She cited naturalized ladies famous for the pastime. Her world and its
outskirts she knew thoroughly, even to the fact of my grandfather's
desire that I should marry Janet Ilchester. She named a duke's daughter,
an earl's. Of course I should have to stop the scandal: otherwise the
choice I had was unrestricted. My father she evidently disliked, but she
just as much disliked an encounter with his invincible bonhomie and
dexterous tongue. She hinted at family reasons for being shy of him,
assuring me that I was not implicated in them.

'The Guelph pattern was never much to my taste,' she said, and it