Miss Lyster smiled.  “You know, Cousin Elizabeth—­and you may as well confess it at once!—­that you think him the ablest, handsomest, and charmingest of men!”

“Of course I do,” said Lady Tranmore, calmly.  “I am certain, moreover—­now—­that he will be Prime Minister.  And as for idleness, that, of course, is only a facon de parler.  He has worked hard enough at the things which please him.”

“There—­you see!” said Mary Lyster, laughing.

“Not politics, anyway,” said the elder lady, reflectively.  “He went into the House to please me, because I was a fool and wanted to see him there.  But I must say when his constituents turned him out last year I thought they would have been a mean-spirited set if they hadn’t.  They knew very well he’d never done a stroke for them.  Attendances—­divisions—­perfectly scandalous!”

“Well, here he is, in triumphantly for somewhere else—­with all sorts of delightful prospects!”

Lady Tranmore sighed.  Her white fingers paused in their task.

“That, of course, is because—­now—­he’s a personage.  Everything’ll be made easy for him now.  My dear Mary, they talk of England’s being a democracy!”

The speaker raised her handsome shoulders; then, as though to shake off thoughts of loss and grief which had suddenly assailed her, she abruptly changed the subject.

“Well—­work or no work—­the first thing we’ve got to do is to marry him.”

She looked up sharply.  But not the smallest tremor could she detect in Mary Lyster’s gently moving hand.  There was, however, no reply to her remark.

“Don’t you agree, Polly?” said Lady Tranmore, smiling.

Her smile—­which still gave great beauty to her face—­was charming, but a little sly, as she observed her companion.

“Why, of course,” said Miss Lyster, inclining her head to one side that she might judge the effect of some green shades she had just put in.  “But that surely will be made easy for him, too.”

“Well, after all, the girls can’t propose!  And I never saw him take any interest in a girl yet—­outside his own family, of course,” added Lady Tranmore, hastily.

“No—­he does certainly devote himself to the married women,” replied Miss Lyster, in the half-absent tone of one more truly interested in her embroidery than in the conversation.

“He would sooner have an hour with Madame d’Estrees than a week with the prettiest miss in London.  That’s quite true, but I vow it’s the girls’ own fault!  They should stand on their dignity—­snub the creatures more!  In my young days—­”

[Illustration:  Lady Tranmore and Mary Lyster]

“Ah, there wasn’t a glut of us then,” said Mary, calmly.  “Listen!”—­she held up her hand.

“Yes,” said Lady Tranmore, springing up.  “There he is.”

She stood waiting.  The door flew open, and in came a tall young man.