“Don’t you think the Princess is looking pale?” he was asked.

“I thought she looked very pretty—­I never saw her before,” said he.

What next?  That calm air was a trifle cold and distant.  He did not know who the woman was, or where she lived, or whether her husband had any shooting, or a yacht, or a pack of hounds.  What was he to say?  He returned to the Princess.

“I only saw her as she was leaving,” said he.  “We came late.  We were at the Piccadilly Theatre.”

“Oh, you saw Miss Gertrude White,” said this stout lady; and he was glad to see her eyes light up with some interest.  “She is very clever, is she not—­and so pretty and engaging.  I wish I knew some one who knew her.”

“I know some friends of hers,” Macleod said, rather timidly.

“Oh, do you, really?  Do you think she would give me a morning performance for my Fund?”

This lady seemed to take it so much for granted that every one must have heard of her Fund that he dared not confess his ignorance.  But it was surely some charitable thing; and how could he doubt that Miss White would immediately respond to such an appeal?

“I should think that she would,” said he, with a little hesitation; but at this moment some other claimant came forward, and he turned away to seek young Ogilvie once more.

“Ogilvie,” said he, “who is that lady in the green satin?”

“The Duchess of Wexford.”

“Has she a Fund?”

“A what?”

“A Fund—­a charitable Fund of some sort.”

“Oh, let me see.  I think she is getting up money for a new training ship—­turning the young ragamuffins about the streets into sailors, don’t you know.”

“Do you think Miss White would give a morning performance for that Fund?”

“Miss White!  Miss White!  Miss White!” said Lieutenant Ogilvie.  “I think Miss White has got into your head.”

“But the lady asked me.”

“Well, I should say it was exactly the thing that Miss White would like to do—­get mixed up with a whole string of duchesses and marchionessses—­a capital advertisement—­and it would be all the more distinguished if it was an amateur performance, and Miss Gertrude White the only professional admitted into the charmed circle.”

“You are a very shrewd boy, Ogilvie,” Macleod observed, “I don’t know how you ever got so much wisdom into so small a head.”

And indeed, as Lieutenant Ogilvie was returning to Aldershot by what he was pleased to call the cold-meat train, he continued to play the part of mentor for a time with great assiduity, until Macleod was fairly confused with the number of persons to whom he was introduced, and the remarks his friend made about them.  What struck him most, perhaps, was the recurrence of old Highland or Scotch family names, borne by persons who were thoroughly English in their speech and ways.  Fancy a Gordon who said “lock” for “loch;” a Mackenzie who had never seen the Lewis; a Mac Alpine who had never heard the proverb, “The hills, the Mac Alpines, and the devil came into the world at the same time!”