"Is Señorita Fajardo in the same predicament as the service?"
"There's a cousin, Lady James----"
"A female cousin, who goes with the property, as a fixture. I quite understand. You have to marry her, out of gratitude for the money, and without the discomforting passion of love. The Spanish lady's history repeats itself, I see."
Askew was rather discomfited. "How quick you are!"
"You can't have had much to do with women," she murmured; "but I hope you will make no trouble in the smoking-room."
"No; as things are, it's none of my funeral," he observed, grumpily.
"Quite so. I am the chief mourner."
"But I say, Lady James," said the lieutenant, anxiously, "I hope what I've inadvertently told you won't----"
"Of course not," she assured him, mendaciously; "my husband is most trustworthy, as you can see by his choice of that ugly old maid as a dinner companion. You were mistaken."
"I think I must have been," said Askew, with great relief. "Of course, people talk at Lima, as elsewhere," he ended apologetically.