’How d’ye do, Lady Kirkbank?—­how d’ye do, Lesbia?  Just caught sight of you from below as the curtain was going down,’ said Maulevrier, shaking hands with the ladies and saluting Mr. Smithson with a somewhat supercilious nod.  ’Rather surprised to see you and Lesbia here to-night, Lady Kirkbank.  Isn’t the Demi-monde rather strong meat for babes, eh?  Not exactly the play one would take a young lady to see.’

’Why should a young lady be forbidden to see a fine play, because there are some hard and bitter truths told in it?’ asked Lady Kirkbank.  ’Lesbia sees Madame d’Ange and all her sisterhood in the Park and about London every day of her life.  Why should not she see them on the stage, and hear their history, and understand how cruel their fate is, and learn to pity them, if she can?  I really think this play is a lesson in Christian charity; and I should like to see that Oliver man strangled, though Delaunay plays the part divinely.  What a voice!  What a manner!  How polished!  How perfect!  And they tell me he is going to leave the stage in a year or two.  What will the world do without him?’

Maulevrier did not attempt to suggest a solution of this difficulty.  He was watching Mr. Smithson as he leant against the back of Lesbia’s chair and talked to her.  The two seemed very familiar, laughingly discussing the play and the actors.  Smithson knew, or pretended to know, all about the latter.  He told Lesbia who made Croizette’s gowns—­the upholsterer who furnished that lovely house of hers in the Bois—­the sums paid for her horses, her pictures, her diamonds.  It seemed to Lesbia, when she had heard all, that Croizette was a much-to-be-envied person.

Mr. Smithson had unpublished bon-mots of Dumas at his finger ends; he knew Daudet, and Sarcey, and Sardou, and seemed to be thoroughly at home in Parisian artistic society.  Lesbia began to think that he would hardly be so despicable a person as she had at first supposed.  No wonder he and his wealth had turned poor Belle Trinder’s head.  How could a rural vicar’s daughter, accustomed to poverty, help being dazzled by such magnificence?

Maulevrier stayed in the box only a short time, and refused Lady Kirkbank’s invitation to supper.  She did not urge the point, as she had surprised one or two very unfriendly glances at Mr. Smithson in Maulevrier’s honest eyes.  She did not want an antagonistic brother to interfere with her plans.  She had made up her mind to ‘run’ Lesbia according to her own ideas, and any counter influence might be fatal.  So, when Maulevrier said he was due at the Marlborough after the play she let him go.

’I might as well be at Fellside and you in London, for anything I see of you,’ said Lesbia.

’You are up to your eyes in engagements, and I don’t suppose you want to see any more of me.’  Maulevrier answered, bluntly.

’But I’ll call to-morrow morning, if I am likely to find you at home.  I’ve some news for you.’