Her social education had advanced considerably since that summer day in the pine-wood, when John Hammond had wooed her with passionate wooing.  Mr. Smithson was a much less ardent suitor, and made his offer with the air of a man who expects to be accepted.

Lesbia’s beautiful head bent a little, like a lily on its stalk, and a faint blush deepened the pale rose tint of her complexion.  Her reply was courteous and conventional.  She was flattered, she was grateful for Mr. Smithson’s high opinion of her; but she was deeply grieved if anything in her manner had given him reason to think that he was more to her than a friend, an old friend of dear Lady Kirkbank’s, whom she was naturally predisposed to like, as Lady Kirkbank’s friend.

Horace Smithson turned pale as death, but if he was angry, he gave no utterance to his angry feelings.  He only asked if Lady Lesbia’s answer was final—­and on being told that it was so, he dismissed the subject in the easiest manner, and with a gentlemanlike placidity which very much astonished the lady.

‘You say that you regard me as your friend,’ he said.  ’Do not withdraw that privilege from me because I have asked for a higher place in your esteem.  Forget all I have said this morning.  Be assured I shall never offend you by repeating it.’

‘You are more than good,’ murmured Lesbia, who had expected a wild outbreak of despair or fury, rather than this friendly calm.

’I hope that you and Lady Kirkbank will go and hear Madame Metzikoff this afternoon,’ pursued Mr. Smithson, returning to the subject of the matinee.  ‘The duchess’s rooms are lovely; but no doubt you know them.’

Lesbia blushed, and confessed that the Duchess of Lostwithiel was one of those select few who were not on Lady Kirkbank’s visiting list.

‘There are people Lady Kirkbank cannot get on with,’ she said.  ’Perhaps she will hardly like to go to the duchess’s, as she does not visit her.’

’Oh, but this affair counts for nothing.  We go to hear Metzikoff, not to bow down to the duchess.  All the people in town who care for music will be there, and you who play so divinely must enjoy fine professional playing.’

‘I worship a really great player,’ said Lesbia, ’and if I can drag Lady Kirkbank to the house of the enemy, we will be there.’

On this Mr. Smithson discreetly murmured ‘au revoir,’ took up his hat and cane, and departed, without, in Sir George’s parlance, having turned a hair.

‘Refusal number one,’ he said to himself, as he went downstairs, with his leisurely catlike pace, that velvet step by which he had gradually crept into society.  ’We may have to go through refusal number two and number three; but she means to have me.  She is a very clever girl for a countrybred one; and she knows that it is worth her while to be Lady Lesbia Smithson.’