would be doubtless less amusing, but there would be compensating
advantages."

Francesca snapped the remark out at lunch one day when she had been
betrayed into a broader smile than she considered the circumstances
of her attitude towards Comus warranted.

"I'm going to move in quite decent society to-night," replied Comus
with a pleased chuckle; "I'm going to meet you and Uncle Henry and
heaps of nice dull God-fearing people at dinner."

Francesca gave a little gasp of surprise and annoyance.

"You don't mean to say Caroline has asked you to dinner to-night?"
she said; "and of course without telling me. How exceedingly like
her!"

Lady Caroline Benaresq had reached that age when you can say and do
what you like in defiance of people's most sensitive feelings and
most cherished antipathies. Not that she had waited to attain her
present age before pursuing that line of conduct; she came of a
family whose individual members went through life, from the nursery
to the grave, with as much tact and consideration as a cactus-hedge
might show in going through a crowded bathing tent. It was a
compensating mercy that they disagreed rather more among themselves
than they did with the outside world; every known variety and shade
of religion and politics had been pressed into the family service
to avoid the possibility of any agreement on the larger essentials
of life, and such unlooked-for happenings as the Home Rule schism,
the Tariff-Reform upheaval and the Suffragette crusade were