“Even when he mocks at missionaries?”

“Oh! but he doesn’t mock at them any more.  He has learned wisdom—­I assure you he has!”

Lady Tranmore’s patience almost departed, Mary’s look was so penetrated with indulgence for the prejudices of a dear but unreasonable relation.  But she managed to preserve it.

“And you knew he was coming home?”

“Oh yes!” said Mary.  “I meant to have told you at dinner.  But something put it out of my head—­Kitty, of course!  I shouldn’t wonder if he were at the embassy to-night.”

“Polly! tell me—­“—­Lady Tranmore gripped Miss Lyster’s hand with some force—­“are you going to marry him?”

“Not that I know of,” was the smiling reply.  “Don’t you think I’m old enough by now to have a man friend?”

“And you expect me to be civil to him!”

“Well, dear Cousin Elizabeth—­you know—­you never did break with him, quite.”

Lady Tranmore, in her bewilderment, reflected that she had certainly meant to complete the process whenever she and Mr. Cliffe should meet again.  Aloud she could only say, rather stiffly: 

“I can’t forget that William disapproves of him strongly.”

“Oh no—­excuse me—­I don’t think he does!” said Mary, quickly.  “He said to me, the other day, that he should be very glad to pick his brains when he came home.  And then he laughed and said he was a ’deuced clever fellow’—­excuse the adjective—­and it was a great thing to be ’as free as that chap was’—­’without all sorts of boring colleagues and responsibilities.’  Wasn’t it like William?”

Lady Tranmore sighed.

“William shouldn’t say those things.”

“Of course, dear, he was only in fun.  But I’ll lay you a small wager, Cousin Elizabeth, that Kitty will ask Mr. Cliffe to lunch as soon as she knows he is in town.”

Lady Tranmore turned away.

“I dare say.  No one can answer for what Kitty will do.  But Geoffrey Cliffe has said scandalous things of William.”

“He won’t say them again,” said Mary, soothingly.  “Besides, William never minds being abused a bit—­does he?”

“He should mind,” said Lady Tranmore, drawing herself up.  “In my young days, our enemies were our enemies and our friends our friends.  Nowadays nothing seems to matter.  You may call a man a scoundrel one day and ask him to dinner the next.  We seem to use words in a new sense—­and I confess I don’t like the change.  Well, Mary, I sha’n’t, of course, be rude to any friend of yours.  But don’t expect me to be effusive.  And please remember that my acquaintance with Geoffrey Cliffe is older than yours.”

Mary made a caressing reply, and gave her mind for the rest of the drive to the smoothing of Lady Tranmore’s ruffled plumes.  But it was not easy.  As that lady made her way up the crowded staircase of the French Embassy, her fine face was still absent and a little stern.

Mary could only reflect that she had at least got through a first explanation which was bound to be made.  Then for a few minutes her mind surrendered itself wholly to the question, “Will he be here?”