“You see,” she said, plaintively, “it is meant to go just so,” and she placed it once more upon her head, a handsome head of forty-five, fresh and well preserved and comely.  “But the vile-tempered thing refuses to stay there once I let go, and no pin will correct it.”

“Base ingratitude,” said Lord Bracondale, with feeling; “but couldn’t you stuff these in the hiatus,” and he tenderly lifted a bunch of nut-brown curls from the dressing-table.  “They would fill up the gap and keep the fractious thing steady.”

“Of course they would,” said Mrs. McBride; “but I have a rooted objection to auxiliary nature trimmings.  That bunch was sent with the hat, and Marie has been trying to persuade me to wear it ever since we began this struggle.  But I won’t!  My hair’s my own, and I don’t mean to have any one else’s alongside of it.  There is my trouble.”

“If milor were to hold madame’s ’at one side, while I de other, madame might force her emerald parrot pin through him,” suggested Marie, which advice was followed, and the widow beamed with satisfaction at the gratifying result.

“There!” she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, “that will do; and I am just ready.  Gloves, handkerchief—­oh! and my purse, Marie.”  And in five minutes more she was leading the way back into her sitting-room.

“I have not ordered lunch until one o’clock,” she said, “so we have oceans of time to talk and tell each other secrets.  Sit down, jeune homme, and confess to me.”  She pointed to a bergere, but it was filled with Italian embroideries.  “Marie, take this rubbish away!” she called, and presently some chairs were made clear.

“And what must I confess?” asked Hector, when they were seated.  “That I am frantically in love with you, and your coldness is driving me wild?”

“Certainly not!” said the widow, while she rose again and began to arrange some giant roses in a wonderful basket which looked as if it had just arrived—­her shrewd eye had seen the card, “From Captain Fitzgerald, with his best bonjour.”  “Certainly not!  We are going to talk truth, or, to punish you, I shall not ask you to meet her again, and I shall warn her father of your strictly dishonorable intentions.”

“You would not be so cruel!”

“Yes I would.  And it is what I ought to do, anyway.  She is as innocent as a woolly lamb, and unsophisticated and guileless, and will probably be falling in love with you.  You take the wind out of the sails of that husband of hers, you see!”

“Do I?” said Hector, with overdone incredulity.

She looked at him.  His long, lithe limbs stretched out, every line indicative of breeding and strength.  She noted the shape of his head, the perfect grooming, his lazy, insolent grace, his whimsical smile.  Englishmen of this class were certainly the most provokingly beautiful creatures in the world.

“It is because they have done nothing but order men, kill beasts, and subjugate women for generations,” she said to herself.  “Lazy, naughty darlings!  If they came to our country and worked their brains a little, they would soon lose that look.  But it would be a pity,” she added—­“yes, a pity.”