Wharton devoted himself to his green peas, and made no reply.  Lady Selina glanced at him sharply.  She herself was by no means a beauty.  But neither was she plain.  She had a long, rather distinguished face, with a marked nose and a wide thin-lipped mouth.  Her plentiful fair hair, a little dull and ashy in colour, was heaped up above her forehead in infinitesimal curls and rolls which did great credit to her maid, and gave additional height to the head and length to a thin white neck.  Her light blue eyes were very direct and observant.  Their expression implied both considerable knowledge of the world and a natural inquisitiveness.  Many persons indeed were of opinion that Lady Selina wished to know too much about you and were on their guard when she approached.

“You admired her very much, I see,” she resumed, as Wharton still remained silent.

“Oh, yes.  We talked Socialism, and then I defended her poacher for her.”

“Oh, I remember.  And it is really true, as Miss Raeburn says, that she broke it off because she could not get Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn to sign the petition for the poacher?”

“Somewhere about true,” said Wharton, carelessly.

“Miss Raeburn always gives the same account; you can never get anything else out of her.  But I sometimes wonder whether it is the whole truth. You think she was sincere?”

“Well, she gave up Maxwell Court and thirty thousand a year,” he replied drily.  “I should say she had at least earned the benefit of the doubt.”

“I mean,” said Lady Selina, “was she in love with anybody else, and was the poacher an excuse?”

She turned upon him as she spoke—­a smiling, self-possessed person—­a little spoilt by those hard, inquisitive eyes.

“No, I think not,” said Wharton, throwing his head back to meet her scrutiny.  “If so, nothing has been heard of him yet.  Miss Boyce has been at St. Edward’s Hospital for the last year.”

“To learn nursing?  It is what all the women do nowadays, they tell me, who can’t get on with their relations or their lovers.  Do you suppose it is such a very hard life?”

“I don’t want to try!” said Wharton.  “Do you?”

She evaded his smile.

“What is she going to do when she has done her training?”

“Settle down and nurse among the poor, I believe.”

“Magnificent, no doubt, but hardly business, from her point of view.  How much more she might have done for the poor with thirty thousand a year!  And any woman could put up with Aldous Raeburn.”

Wharton shrugged his shoulders.

“We come back to those feelings, Lady Selina, you think so badly of.”

She laughed.

“Well, but feelings must be intelligible.  And this seems so small a cause.  However, were you there when it was broken off?”

“No; I have never seen her since the day of the poacher’s trial.”