mentioned that Mrs. St. George had been obliged to renounce the attempt
to go further.

"She oughtn't to have come out at all," her ladyship rather grumpily
remarked.

"Is she so very much of an invalid?"

"Very bad indeed." And his hostess added with still greater austerity:
"She oughtn't really to come to one!" He wondered what was implied by
this, and presently gathered that it was not a reflexion on the lady's
conduct or her moral nature: it only represented that her strength was
not equal to her aspirations.




CHAPTER III


The smoking-room at Summersoft was on the scale of the rest of the place;
high light commodious and decorated with such refined old carvings and
mouldings that it seemed rather a bower for ladies who should sit at work
at fading crewels than a parliament of gentlemen smoking strong cigars.
The gentlemen mustered there in considerable force on the Sunday evening,
collecting mainly at one end, in front of one of the cool fair fireplaces
of white marble, the entablature of which was adorned with a delicate
little Italian "subject." There was another in the wall that faced it,
and, thanks to the mild summer night, a fire in neither; but a nucleus
for aggregation was furnished on one side by a table in the