’The little fortune I have saved is much too small for division.  Lesbia will therefore have all I can leave her.  Mary has the usual provision as a daughter of the Maulevrier house.’

‘And I suppose Lesbia has that provision also?’

‘Of course.’

’Lucky Lesbia.  I only wish Hartfield were coming to us for the shooting.  I would engage he should fall in love with her.  Kirkbank is a splendid place for match-making.  But the fact is I am not very intimate with him.  He is almost always travelling, and when he is at home he is not in our set.  And now, my dear Diana, tell me more about yourself, and your own life in this delicious place.’

’There is so little to tell.  The books I have read, the theories of literature and art and science which I have adopted and dismissed, learnt and forgotten—­those are the history of my life.  The ideas of the outside world reach me here only in books and newspapers; but you who have been living in the world must have so much to say.  Let me be the listener.’

Lady Kirkbank desired nothing better.  She rattled on for three-quarters of an hour about her doings in the great world, her social triumphs, the wonderful things she had done for Sir George, who seemed to be as a puppet in her hands, the princes and princelings she had entertained, the songs she had composed, the comedy she had written, for private representation only, albeit the Haymarket manager was dying to produce it, the scathing witticisms with which she had withered her social enemies.  She would have gone on much longer, but for the gong, which reminded her that it was time to dross for dinner.

Half-an-hour later Lady Kirkbank was in the drawing-room, where Mary had retired to the most shadowy corner, anxious to escape the gaze of the fashionable visitor.

But Lady Kirkbank was not inclined to take much notice of Mary.  Lesbia’s brilliant beauty, the exquisite Greek head, the faultless complexion, the deep, violet eyes, caught Georgina Kirkbank’s eye the moment she had entered the room, and she saw that this girl and no other must be the beauty, the beloved and chosen grandchild.

‘How do you do, my dear?’ she said, taking Lesbia’s hand, and then, as if with a gush of warm feeling, suddenly drawing the girl towards her and kissing her on both cheeks.  ’I am going to be desperately fond of you, and I hope you will soon contrive to like me—­just a little.’

‘I feel sure that I shall like you very much,’ Lesbia answered sweetly.  ‘I am prepared to love you as grandmother’s old friend.’

’Oh, my dear, to think that I should ever be the old friend of anybody’s grandmother!’ sighed Lady Kirkbank, with unaffected regret.  ’When I was your age I used to think all old people odious.  It never occurred to me that I should live to be one of them.’

‘Then you had no dear grandmother whom you loved,’ said Lesbia, ’or you would have liked old people for her sake.’