to run smooth, for all that? Not it! She's got a 'ard time ahead of
her, that poor girl."

"Horace!" Mrs Parker's gentle heart was wrung. The situation hinted
at by her husband was no new one--indeed, it formed the basis of at
least fifty per cent of the stories in the True Heart Novelette
Series, of which she was a determined reader--but it had never failed
to touch her. "Do you think her ladyship means to come between them
and wreck their romance?"

"I think she means to have a jolly good try."

"But Sir Derek has his own money, hasn't he? I mean, it's not like
when Sir Courtenay Travers fell in love with the milk-maid and was
dependent on his mother, the Countess, for everything. Sir Derek can
afford to do what he pleases, can't he?"

Parker shook his head tolerantly. The excellence of the cigar and the
soothing qualities of the whisky-and-soda had worked upon him, and he
was feeling less ruffled.

"You don't understand these things," he said. "Women like her
ladyship can talk a man into anything and out of anything. I wouldn't
care, only you can see the poor girl is mad over the feller. What she
finds attractive in him, I can't say, but that's her own affair."

"He's very handsome, Horace, with those flashing eyes and that stern
mouth," argued Mrs Parker.

Parker sniffed.