“Do you mean—­if I suddenly found out?”

She nodded assent.

“Well!” he reflected; “it would be disagreeable!”

“Yes—­but would it make you give up all the things you like?—­golfing—­and cards—­and parties—­and the girl you were engaged to—­and take to slumming, and that kind of thing?”

The slight inflection of the last words drew smiles.  Mr. Ferrier held up a finger.

“Miss Alicia, I shall lend you no more books.”

“Why?  Because I can’t appreciate them?”

Mr. Ferrier laughed.

“I maintain that book is a book to melt the heart of a stone.”

“Well, I tried to cry,” said the girl, putting another grape into her mouth, and quietly nodding at her interlocutor—­“I did—­honor bright.  But—­really—­what does it matter what your father did?”

“My dear!” said Lady Lucy, softly.  Her singularly white and finely wrinkled face, framed in a delicate capote of old lace, looked coldly at the speaker.

“By-the-way,” said Mr. Ferrier, “does not the question rather concern you in this neighborhood?  I hear young Brenner has just come to live at West Hill.  I don’t now what sort of a youth he is, but if he’s a decent fellow, I don’t imagine anybody will boycott him on account of his father’s misdoings.”

He referred to one of the worst financial scandals of the preceding generation.  Lady Lucy made no answer, but any one closely observing her might have noticed a sudden and sharp stiffening of the lips, which was in truth her reply.

“Oh, you can always ask a man like that to garden-parties!” said a shrill, distant voice.  The group round the table turned.  The remark was made by old Lady Niton, who sat enthroned in an arm-chair near the fire, sometimes knitting, and sometimes observing her neighbors with a malicious eye.

“Anything’s good enough, isn’t it, for garden-parties?” said Mrs. Fotheringham, with a little sneer.

Lady Niton’s face kindled.  “Let us be Radicals, my dear,” she said, briskly, “but not hypocrites.  Garden-parties are invaluable—­for people you can’t ask into the house.  By-the-way, wasn’t it you, Oliver, who scolded me last night, because I said somebody wasn’t ’in Society’?”

“You said it of a particular hero of mine,” laughed Marsham.  “I naturally pitied Society.”

“What is Society?  Where is it?” said Sir James Chide, contemptuously.  “I suppose Lady Palmerston knew.”

The famous lawyer sat a little apart from the rest.  Diana, who had only caught his name, and knew nothing else of him, looked with sudden interest at the man’s great brow and haughty look.  Lady Niton shook her head emphatically.

“We know quite as well as she did.  Society is just as strong and just as exclusive as it ever was.  But it is clever enough now to hide the fact from outsiders.”

“I am afraid we must agree that standards have been much relaxed,” said Lady Lucy.