The girl gave the matter, thus admonished, some visible thought. "I know him better certainly, if you mean that. And I like him very much. But I don't like him enough to make trouble for him with his family. However, I don't believe in that."

"I like the way you say 'however'!" Mrs. Westgate commented. "Do you pretend you wouldn't be glad to marry him?"

Again Bessie calmly considered. "It would take a great deal more than is at all imaginable to make me marry him."

Her relative showed an impatience. "And what's the great difficulty?"

"The great difficulty is that I shouldn't care to," said Bessie Alden.

The morning after Lord Lambeth had had with his own frankest critic that exchange of ideas which has just been narrated, the ladies at Jones's Hotel received from him a written invitation to pay their projected visit to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday. "I think I've made up a very pleasant party," his lordship went on. "Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have been accidentally prevented from making your acquaintance sooner." Bessie at this lost no time in calling her sister's attention to the injustice she had done the d.u.c.h.ess of Bayswater, whose hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion.

"Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate. "And if she's to meet us at her son's house the obligation's all the greater for her to call on us."

Bessie hadn't to wait long, for it appeared that her friend's parent now descried the direction in which, according to her companion's observation, courtesy pointed. On the morrow, early in the afternoon, two cards were brought to the apartment of the American ladies-one of them bearing the name of the d.u.c.h.ess of Bayswater and the other that of the Countess of Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. "It isn't yet four," she said; "they've come early; they want really to find us.

We'll receive them." And she gave orders that her visitors should be admitted. A few moments later they were introduced and a solemn exchange of amenities took place. The d.u.c.h.ess was a large lady with a fine fresh colour; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked about her as she sat down-looked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. "I daresay my son has told you that I've been wanting to come to see you," she dropped-and from no towering nor inconvenient height.

"You're very kind," said Mrs. Westgate vaguely-her conscience not allowing her to a.s.sent to this proposition, and indeed not permitting her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.

"He tells us you were so kind to him in America," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"We're very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to have been able to make him feel a little more-a little less-a little at home."

"I think he stayed at your house," the visitor more heavily breathed, but as an overture, across to Bessie Alden.

Mrs. Westgate intercepted the remark. "A very short time indeed."

"Oh!" said the d.u.c.h.ess; and she continued to address her interest to Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with her daughter.

"Do you like London?" Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie, after looking at her a good deal-at her face and her hands, her dress and her hair.

The girl was prompt and clear. "Very much indeed."

"Do you like this hotel?"

"It's very comfortable."

"Do you like stopping at hotels?" Lady Pimlico asked after a pause.

"I'm very fond of travelling, and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But they're not the part I'm fondest of," Bessie without difficulty admitted.

"Oh I hate travelling!" said Lord Lambeth's sister, who transferred her attention to Mrs. Westgate.

"My son tells me you're going to Branches," the d.u.c.h.ess presently resumed.

"Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate, who felt herself now under the eyes of both visitors and who had her customary happy consciousness of a distinguished appearance. The only mitigation of her felicity on this point was that, having taken in every item of that of the d.u.c.h.ess, she said to herself: "She won't know how well I'm dressed!"

"He has been so good as to tell me he expects me, but I'm not quite sure of what I can do," the n.o.ble lady exhaled.

"He had offered us the p-the prospect of meeting you," Mrs. Westgate further contributed.

"I hate the country at this season," the d.u.c.h.ess went on.

Her hostess melted to sweetness. "I delight in it at all seasons. And I think it now above all pleasanter than London."

But the d.u.c.h.ess's eyes were absent again; she was looking very fixedly at Bessie. In a minute she slowly rose, pa.s.sed across the room with a great rustle and an effect of momentous displacement, reached a chair that stood empty at the girl's right hand and silently seated herself. As she was a majestic voluminous woman this little transaction had inevitably an air of somewhat impressive intention. It diffused a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate. "I suppose you go out immensely."

"No, very little. We're strangers, and we didn't come for the local society."

"I see," said Lady Pimlico. "It's rather nice in town just now."

"I've known it of course duskier and dingier. But we only go to see a few people," Mrs. Westgate added-"old friends or persons we particularly like."

"Of course one can't like every one," Lady Pimlico conceded.

"It depends on one's society," Mrs. Westgate returned.

The d.u.c.h.ess meanwhile had addressed herself to Bessie. "My son tells me the young ladies in America are so clever."

"I'm glad they made so good an impression on him," our heroine smiled.

The d.u.c.h.ess took the case, clearly, as no matter for grimacing; there reigned in her large pink face a meridian calm. "He's very susceptible.

He thinks every one clever-and sometimes they are."

"Sometimes," Bessie cheerfully a.s.sented.

The d.u.c.h.ess continued all serenely and publicly to appraise her.

"Lambeth's very susceptible, but he's very volatile too."

"Volatile?" Bessie echoed.

"He's very inconstant. It won't do to depend on him."

"Ah," the girl returned, "I don't recognise that description. We've depended on him greatly, my sister and I, and have found him so faithful.

He has never disappointed us."

"He'll disappoint you yet," said her Grace with a certain rich force.

Bessie gave a laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt as at such a contention from such a quarter. "I suppose it will depend on what we expect of him."

"The less you expect the better," said her ma.s.sive monitress.

"Well, we expect nothing unreasonable."

The d.u.c.h.ess had a fine contemplative pause-evidently with more to say.

She made, in the quant.i.ty, her next selection. "Lambeth says he has seen so much of you."

"He has been with us very often-he has been a ministering angel," Bessie hastened to put on record.