"You, too, see the design?" Mademoiselle asked Mabel, adding: "A friend from the town, yes?"
"How do you do?" said Mabel politely. "No, I'm not from the town.
I live at Yalding Towers."
The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle very much. Gerald anxiously hoped in his own mind that she was not a snob.
"Yalding Towers," she repeated, "but this is very extraordinary. Is it possible that you are then of the family of Lord Yalding?"
"He hasn't any family," said Mabel; "he's not married."
"I would say are you how you say? cousin sister niece?"
"No," said Mabel, flushing hotly, "I'm nothing grand at all. I'm
Lord Yalding's housekeeper's niece."
"But you know Lord Yalding, is it not?"
"No," said Mabel, "I've never seen him."
"He comes then never to his chateau?"