Miss Wigram considered—­her gentle, troubled eyes bent upon Doris.  “Of course—­I know—­how many people dislike Lady Dunstable.  She did a—­rather cruel thing to me once.  The thought of it humiliated and discouraged me for a long time.  It made me almost glad to leave home.  And of course she hasn’t won Mr. Herbert’s confidence at all.  She has always snubbed and disapproved of him.  Oh, I knew him very little.  I have hardly ever spoken to him.  You saw he didn’t recognise me this afternoon.  But my father used to go over to Crosby Ledgers to coach him in the holidays, and he often told me that as a boy he was terrified of his mother.  She either took no notice of him at all, or she was always sneering at him, and scolding him.  As soon as ever he came of age and got a little money of his own, he declared he wouldn’t live at home.  His father wanted him to go into Parliament or the army, but he said he hated the army, and if he was such a dolt as his mother thought him it would be ridiculous to attempt politics.  And so he just drifted up to town and looked out for people that would make much of him, and wouldn’t snub him.  And that, of course, was how he got into the toils of a woman like that!”

The girl threw up her hands tragically.

Doris sat up, with energy.

“But what on earth,” she said, “does it matter to you or to me?”

“Oh, can’t you see?” said the other, flushing deeply, and with the tears in her eyes.  “My father had one of Lord Dunstable’s livings.  We lived on that estate for years.  Everybody loved Lord Dunstable.  And though Lady Dunstable makes enemies, there’s a great respect for the family.  They’ve been there since Queen Elizabeth’s time.  And it’s dreadful to think of a woman like—­well, like that!—­reigning at Crosby Ledgers.  I think of the poor people.  Lady Dunstable’s good to them; though of course you wouldn’t hear anything about it, unless you lived there.  She tries to do her duty to them—­she really does—­in her own way.  And, of course, they respect her.  No Dunstable has ever done anything disgraceful!  Isn’t there something in ‘Noblesse oblige’?  Think of this woman at the head of that estate!”

“Well, upon my word,” said Doris, after a pause, “you are feudal.  Don’t you feel yourself that you are old-fashioned?”

Mrs. Meadows’s half-sarcastic look at first intimidated her visitor, and then spurred her into further attempts to explain herself.

“I daresay it’s old-fashioned,” she said slowly, “but I’m sure it’s what father would have felt.  Anyway, I went off to try and find out what I could.  I went first to a little club I belong to—­for professional women—­near the Strand, and I asked one or two women I found there—­who know artists—­and models—­and write for papers.  And very soon I found out a great deal.  I didn’t have to go to the man whose address Mr. Bentley gave me.  Madame Vavasour is a horrid woman!