disapprove; but his anger had given place to a new interest when he learned direct from herself that she had not seen the count, and that she was simply anxious that he, as her friend, should have an interview with the man.  He had then become very eager in the matter, offering to subject himself to any amount of inconvenience so that he might effect that which Lady Ongar asked of him.  He was not, however, called upon to endure any special trouble or expense, as he heard nothing more from Count Pateroff till he had been back in London for two or three weeks.

Lady Ongar’s statement to him had been quite true.  It had been even more than true; for when she had written she had not even heard directly from the count.  She had learned by letter from another person that Count Pateroff was in London, and had then communicated the fact to her friend.  This other person was a sister of the count’s, who was now living in London, one Madame Gordeloup—­Sophie Gordeloup—­a lady whom Harry had found sitting in Lady Ongar’s room when last he had seen her in Bolton Street.  He had not then heard her name; nor was he aware then, or for some time subsequently, that Count Pateroff had any relative in London.

Lady Ongar had been a fortnight in the country before she received Madame Gordeloup’s letter.  In that letter the sister had declared herself to be most anxious that her brother should see Lady Ongar.  The letter had been in French, and had been very eloquent—­more eloquent in its cause than any letter with the same object could have been if written by an Englishwoman in English; and the eloquence was less offensive than it might, under all concurrent circumstances, have been had it reached Lady Ongar in English.  The reader must not, however, suppose that the letter contained a word that was intended to support a lover’s suit.  It was very far indeed from that, and spoke of the count simply as a friend; but its eloquence went to show that nothing that had passed should be construed by Lady Ongar as offering any bar to a fair friendship.  What the world said!—­Bah!  Did not she know—­she, Sophie—­and did not her friend know—­her friend Julie—­that the world was a great liar?  Was it not even now telling wicked venomous lies about her friend Julie?  Why mind what the world said, seeing that the world could not be brought to speak one word of truth?  The world indeed!  Bah!

But Lady Ongar, though she was not as yet more than half as old as Madame Gordeloup, knew what she was about almost as well as that lady knew what Sophie Gordeloup was doing.  Lady Ongar had known the count’s sister in France and Italy, having seen much of her in one of those sudden intimacies to which English people are subject when abroad; and she had been glad to see Madame Gordeloup in London—­much more glad than she would have been had she been received there on her return by a crowd of loving native friends.  But not on that account was she prepared to shape