“I’m going to show Dan Blair off,” Lady Galorey responded, “going to give the débutantes a chance.”

Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette and began to quote from Dan Blair’s conversation: “I fancy he won’t let them ‘worry him’; he’s too ‘busy!’”

“You mean that you’re going to keep him occupied?”

The duchess didn’t notice this.

Is he such a catch?”

Neither of the women had walked out with the guns. The duchess had a bad foot, and Lady Galorey never went anywhere she could help with her husband. She now drew her chair up to the table in the morning-room, to which they had both gone after the departure of the guns, and regarded with satisfaction a quantity of stationery and the red leather desk appointments.

“Sit down and smoke if you like, Lily; I’m going to fill out some lists.”

“No, thanks, I’m going up to my rooms and get Parkins to ‘massey’ this beastly foot of mine. I must have fallen on it. But tell me first, is Mr. Blair a catch?”

Lady Galorey had opened an address book and looked up from it to reply:

“Something like ten million pounds.”