“But do take some,” replied Mrs. Richardson, “It is very nice indeed.”

“No, thank you,” said Mrs. Sykes very shortly, her eyes on her book.

“Just one cup.  Let me make it for you?” suggested Mrs. Richardson.

“Not for a five-pound note would I drink the poisonous stuff.  Say no more about it,” replied Mrs. Sykes, with delicate consideration, and turned over a page.

“Do take some coffee, then, or chocolate,” insisted Mrs. Richardson.

“Nothing of any sort or kind whatever,” snapped Mrs. Sykes, turning away decidedly, to get a better light on her book, apparently, but really to get rid of her hostess.

Mr. Ketchum, fearing to show indecent exultation when the carriages were announced, repressed the satisfaction that would have expressed itself in gay speeches of farewell.  A decorous exit was made; and as they rolled away he gave a great sigh of relief, and exclaimed, “I haven’t had as much fun since I had the measles.  Mussiful Powers! what an evening!  I feel like the boy whose mother gave him a good beating for his own sake.  But all the same I shall have a word to say to Mrs. Sykes tomorrow; and of course I shall have to apologize for her behavior to Richardson.”

“Most insolent, unpardonable conduct, I call it,” said Sir Robert.  “She’s an innately vulgar woman.”

“Puts on an awful lot of side.  I can’t stand her.  She gives me the jumps.  And she can tell a buster, too, when she likes:  I have found that out,” put in Mr. Ramsay.

“Well, I don’t exactly hanker to be cast away on a desert island with her, even supposing I was one of the royal dukes and had taken the precaution of being introduced while we were tying on the life preservers, in case of accidents,” said Mr. Ketchum.

What he said to Mrs. Sykes next morning no one ever knew but the discreet Mabel.  Not much, probably, but that little was so much to the point that it had a decided effect,—­two of them, indeed, one interior, the other external.  It increased her respect for him, and it made her perfectly civil to all his friends, as far as constitution and habit would allow.

“I cut her comb for her, and handled her without gloves,” was his report of the interview to his wife, who was amazed at his nerve.

When Sir Robert got a note addressed to “Lord Heathcote, Baronet,” beginning “Dear Sir,” and signed “Very respectfully your obedient servant, " and read it aloud at the breakfast-table as “a most extraordinary production,” Mrs. Sykes had absolutely no comments to make.  And when Ethel opened her letters and found among them an invitation to take a buggy-drive, commencing “Dear Miss,” Mrs. Sykes still held her peace,—­a fact that was full of significance.