She looked round the room vaguely, as if the appropriate word might be lurking in some angle of the apartment; finally, the epithet proving difficult, she abandoned the search.

“Il ira loin!” she said tersely; “he flatters me discreetly, as they did when I was young, before the Republic.”

The silent, well-trained man handed round caviare and olives; Mary trifled with some grapes, her brow knitted a little, thoughtfully.  Lady Garnett poured herself a glass of maraschino.  When they were left alone, the girl remarked abruptly: 

“I am not sure whether I quite like Mr. Lightmark; he does not seem to me sincere.”

Lady Garnett lifted up her hands.

“Why should he be, my dear? sincerity is very trying.  A decent hypocrisy is the secret of good society.  Your good, frank people are very rude.  If I am a wicked old woman, it is nobody’s business to tell me so but my director’s.”

Mary had risen, and had come over to the old lady’s side.

“But then, you are not a wicked old woman, my aunt,” she observed gently.

“Ah!” she threw back, “how do you judge?  Do me the justice to believe, cherie, that, if I tell you a good deal, there is a good deal, happily, which I don’t tell you.”

She pushed a box of cigarettes, which the man had placed on the table, toward Rainham.  He took one and lit it silently, absently, without his accustomed protests; the girl looked up smiling.

“That means that you want your tete-a-tete, Aunt Marcelle?  I know the signal.  Well, I will leave you.  I want to try over that new march of Liszt’s; and I expect, by the time I have grappled with it, you will be coming up for your coffee.”

“You are a good girl,” answered the elder lady, stroking her hand.  “Yes, run away and make music!  When Philip and I have had enough scandal and frivolity, we will come and find you; and you shall play us a little of that strange person Wagner, who fascinates me, though you may not believe it.”

It was a habit of the house, on occasion of these triangular dinner-parties, that Lady Garnett should remain with Rainham in the interval which custom would have made him spend solitary over his wine.  It was a habit which Mary sacredly respected, although it often amused her; and she knew it was one which her aunt valued.  And, indeed, though the two made no movement, and for a while said nothing, there was an air of increased intimacy, if it were only in their silence, when the door had closed on the girl and left them together.  Presently Lady Garnett began holding up her little glass of crystal maraschino that vied in the light of the candelabra with the diamonds on her fingers.

“I had a conversation with that wearisome young man Charles Sylvester at Lucerne, Philip; he tried to sound me as to Mary’s prospects and the state of her affections.”

Rainham looked up with quiet surprise.