"Oh yes!" said Mary. "I meant to have told you at dinner. But something put it out of my head—Kitty, of course! I shouldn't wonder if he were at the embassy to-night."
"Polly! tell me—"—Lady Tranmore gripped Miss Lyster's hand with some force—"are you going to marry him?"
"Not that I know of," was the smiling reply. "Don't you think I'm old enough by now to have a man friend?"
"And you expect me to be civil to him!"
"Well, dear Cousin Elizabeth—you know—you never did break with him, quite."
Lady Tranmore, in her bewilderment, reflected that she had certainly meant to complete the process whenever she and Mr. Cliffe should meet again. Aloud she could only say, rather stiffly:
"I can't forget that William disapproves of him strongly."
"Oh no—excuse me—I don't think he does!" said Mary, quickly. "He said to me, the other day, that he should be very glad to pick his brains when he came home. And then he laughed and said he was a 'deuced clever fellow'—excuse the adjective—and it was a great thing to be 'as free as that chap was'—'without all sorts of boring colleagues and responsibilities.' Wasn't it like William?"
Lady Tranmore sighed.
"William shouldn't say those things."