“Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake’s future.  He’ll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal.  There must, you know, be changes—!”

“No one knows it better than I,” the girl said.  She wished to draw her interlocutress out.  “There will be changes enough for me.”

“You’re leaving Cocker’s?”

The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then it was indirect.  “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“Well, what will you think of it?”

“Why that you’ve found the opening you were always so sure of.”

Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity.  “I was always sure, yes—­and yet I often wasn’t!”

“Well, I hope you’re sure now.  Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake.”

“Yes, my dear, I think I may say I am.  I kept him going till I was.”

“Then he’s yours?”

“My very own.”

“How nice!  And awfully rich?” our young woman went on.

Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things.  “Awfully handsome—­six foot two.  And he has put by.”

“Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!” that gentleman’s friend rather desperately exclaimed.

“Oh not quite!” Mr. Drake’s was ambiguous about it, but the name of Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus.  “He’ll have more opportunity now, at any rate.  He’s going to Lady Bradeen.”

“To Lady Bradeen?” This was bewilderment. “’Going—­’?”

The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the effect of the name had been to make her let something out.  “Do you know her?”

She floundered, but she found her feet.  “Well, you’ll remember I’ve often told you that if you’ve grand clients I have them too.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Jordan; “but the great difference is that you hate yours, whereas I really love mine. Do you know Lady Bradeen?” she pursued.

“Down to the ground!  She’s always in and out.”

Mrs. Jordan’s foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy.  But she bore up and, with a certain gaiety, “Do you hate her?” she demanded.

Her visitor’s reply was prompt.  “Dear no!—­not nearly so much as some of them.  She’s too outrageously beautiful.”

Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze.  “Outrageously?”

“Well, yes; deliciously.”  What was really delicious was Mrs. Jordan’s vagueness.  “You don’t know her—­you’ve not seen her?” her guest lightly continued.

“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about her.”

“So have I!” our young lady exclaimed.

Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at least her seriousness.  “You know some friend—?”

“Of Lady Bradeen’s?  Oh yes—­I know one.”

“Only one?”