"What is her fate?" asked Lord Walderhurst, still gazing in his unbiassed manner through his monocle, and not turning his head as he spoke.
"It is her fate to be a woman who is perfectly well born, and who is as penniless as a charwoman, and works like one. She is at the beck and call of any one who will give her an odd job to earn a meal with. That is one of the new ways women have found of making a living."
"Good skin," remarked Lord Walderhurst, irrelevantly. "Good hair—quite a lot."
"She has some of the nicest blood in England in her veins, and she engaged my last cook for me," said Mrs. Ralph.
"Hope she was a good cook."
"Very. Emily Fox-Seton has a faculty of finding decent people. I believe it is because she is so decent herself"—with a little laugh.
"Looks quite decent," commented Walderhurst. The knitting was getting on famously.
"It was odd you should see Sir Bruce Norman that day," Agatha Slade was saying. "It must have been just before he was called away to India."
"It was. He sailed the next day. I happen to know, because some friends of mine met me only a few yards from your picture and began to talk about him. I had not known before that he was so rich. I had not heard about his collieries in Lancashire. Oh!"—opening her big eyes in heart-felt yearning,—"how I wish I owned a colliery! It must be so nice to be rich!"
"I never was rich," answered Lady Agatha, with a bitter little sigh. "I know it is hideous to be poor."