"I've got Bessie's settlement," observed Lord Semingham; and he added after a moment's pause, "What's the matter? I thought you were a thoroughgoing believer."
"I'm a woman," she answered. "If I were a man——"
"You'd be the prophet, not the disciple, eh?"
She looked at him, and then across to the couple by the window.
"To do Belford justice," remarked Semingham, reading her glance, "he never admits that he isn't a great man—though surely he must know it."
"Is it better to know it, or not to know it?" she asked, restlessly fingering the teapot and cups which had been placed before her. "I sometimes think that if you resolutely refuse to know it, you can alter it."
Belford's name had been the only name mentioned in the conversation; yet Semingham knew that she was not thinking of Belford nor of him.
"I knew it about myself very soon," he said. "It makes a man better to know it, Mrs. Dennison."
"Oh, yes—better," she answered impatiently.
The two men came and joined them. Belford accepted a cup of tea, and, as he took it, he said to Harry, continuing their conversation,