"I just noticed her," said Lady Coryston, indifferently. "One can't help
it, she dresses so outrageously."

"Oh, mother, she dresses very well! Of course nobody else could wear that
kind of thing."

Lady Coryston lifted her eyebrows.

"That's where the ill-breeding comes in--that a young girl should make
herself so conspicuous."

"Well, it seems to pay," laughed Marcia. "She has tremendous success.
People on our side--people you'd never think--will do anything to get her
for their parties. They say she makes things go. She doesn't care what she
says."

"That I can quite believe! Yes--I saw she was at Shrewsbury House the
other day--dining--when the Royalties were there. The daughter of that
_man_!"

Lady Coryston's left foot gave a sharp push to a footstool lying in her
path, as though it were Glenwilliam himself.

Marcia laughed.

"And she's very devoted to him, too. She told some one who told me, that he
was so much more interesting than any other man she knew, that she hadn't
the least wish to marry! I suppose you wouldn't like it if I were to make a
friend of her?" The girl's tone had a certain slight defiance in it.