Mr. Smithson had promised Lady Kirkbank, sportively as it were, and upon the impulse of the moment, as he would have offered to wager a dozen of gloves, that were he so happy as to win her protegee’s hand he would find her an investment for, say, a thousand, which would bring her in twenty per cent.; nay, more, he would also find the thousand, which would have been the initial difficulty on poor Georgie’s part.  But this little matter was in Georgie’s mind a detail, compared with the advantages to accrue to her indirectly from Lesbia’s union with one of the richest men in London.

Lady Kirkbank had brought about many good matches, and had been too often rewarded with base ingratitude upon the part of her protegees, after marriage; but there was a touch of Arcady in the good soul’s nature, and she was always trustful.  She told herself that Lesbia would not be ungrateful, would not basely kick down the ladder by which she had mounted to heights empyrean, would not cruelly shelve the friend who had pioneered her to high fortune.  She counted upon making the house in Park Lane as her own house, upon being the prime mover of all Lesbia’s hospitalities, the supervisor of her visiting list, the shadow behind the throne.

There were balls and parties nightly, dinners, luncheons, garden-parties; and yet there was a sense of waning in the glory of the world—­everybody felt that the fag-end of the season was approaching.  All the really great entertainments were over—­the Cabinet dinners, the Reception at the Foreign Office, the last of the State balls and concerts.  Some of the best people had already left town; and senators were beginning to complain that they saw no prospect of early deliverance.  There was Goodwood still to look forward to; and after Goodwood the Deluge—­or rather Cowes Regatta, about which Lady Kirkbank’s set were already talking.

Lady Lesbia was to be at Cowes for the Regatta week.  That was a settled thing.  Mr. Smithson’s schooner-yacht, the Cayman, was to be her hotel.  It was to be Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia’s yacht for the nonce; and Mr. Smithson was to live on shore at his villa, and at that aristocratic club to which, by Maulevrier’s influence, and on the score of his approaching marriage with an earl’s daughter, he had been just selected.  He would be only Lady Kirkbank’s visitor on board the Cayman.  The severe etiquette of the situation would therefore not be infringed; and yet Mr. Smithson would have the happiness of seeing his betrothed sole and sovereign mistress of his yacht, and of spending the long summer days at her feet.  Even to Lady Lesbia this idea of the yacht was not without its charm.  She had never been on board such a yacht as the Cayman; she was a good sailor, as testified by many an excursion, in hired sailing boats, at Tynemouth, and St. Bees; and she knew that she would be the queen of the hour.  She accepted Mr. Smithson’s invitation for the Cowes week more graciously than she was wont to receive his attentions, and was pleased to say that the whole thing would be rather enjoyable.