"Still less, I imagine."

She reflected on this, and then said with acuteness: "I like that,
and I accept--but what is the lady's name?"






VI





On the way home, in the first drop of his exaltation, Durham had
said to himself: "But why on earth should Bessy invite her?"

He had, naturally, no very cogent reasons to give Mrs. Boykin in
support of his astonishing request, and could only, marvelling at
his own growth in duplicity, suffer her to infer that he was really,
shamelessly "smitten" with the lady he thus proposed to thrust upon
her hospitality. But, to his surprise, Mrs. Boykin hardly gave
herself time to pause upon his reasons. They were swallowed up in
the fact that Madame de Treymes wished to dine with her, as the
lesser luminaries vanish in the blaze of the sun.

"I am not surprised," she declared, with a faint smile intended to