"No--don't wish for what would perhaps be a misfortune!" he said--
"You've done very well for yourself!--but don't be romantic! Keep
that old 'French knight' of yours in the pages of an old French
chronicle!--shut the volume,--lock it up,--and--lose the key!"




CHAPTER III

Some weeks later on, when the London season was at its height, and
Fashion, that frilled and furbelowed goddess, sat enthroned in
state, controlling the moods of the Elect and Select which she
chooses to call "society," Innocent was invited to the house of a
well-known Duchess, renowned for a handsome personality, and also
for an unassailable position, notwithstanding certain sinister
rumours. People said--people are always saying something!--that
her morals were easy-going, but everyone agreed that her taste was
unimpeachable. She--this great lady whose rank permitted her to
entertain the King and Queen--heard of "Ena Armitage" as the
brilliant author whose books were the talk of the town, and
forthwith made up her mind that she must be seen at her house as
the "sensation" of at least one evening. To this end she glided in
her noiseless, satin-cushioned motor brougham up to the door of
Miss Leigh's modest little dwelling and left the necessary slips
of pasteboard bearing her titled name, with similar slips on
behalf of her husband the Duke, for Miss Armitage and Miss Leigh.
The slips were followed in due course by a more imposing and
formal card of invitation to a "Reception and Small Dance.
R.S.V.P." On receiving this, good old Miss Lavinia was a little