before and now repeated, of getting rid altogether of the house in Belgrave Square.  Whenever he made this threat he did not scruple to tell her that the house had to be kept up solely for her welfare.  ’I don’t see why the deuce you don’t get married.  You’ll have to sooner or later.’  That was not a pleasant speech for a daughter to hear from her father.  ‘As to that,’ she said, ’it must come or not as chance will have it.  If you want me to sign anything I will sign it;’—­for she had been asked to sign papers, or in other words to surrender rights;—­’but for that other matter it must be left to myself.’  Then he had been very disagreeable indeed.

They dined together,—­of course with all the luxury that wealth can give.  There was a well-appointed carriage to take them backwards and forwards to the next square, such as an Earl should have.  She was splendidly dressed, as became an Earl’s daughter, and he was brilliant with some star which had been accorded to him by his sovereign’s grateful minister in return for staunch parliamentary support.  No one looking at them could have imagined that such a father could have told such a daughter that she must marry herself out of the way, because as an unmarried girl she was a burden.

During the dinner she was very gay.  To be gay was a habit,—­we may almost say the work,—­of her life.  It so chanced that she sat between Sir Timothy Beeswax, who in these days was a very great man indeed, and that very Dolly Longstaff, whom Silverbridge in his irony had proposed to her as a fitting suitor for her hand.

‘Isn’t Lord Silverbridge a cousin of yours?’ asked Sir Timothy.

‘A very distant one.’

‘He has come over to us, you know.  It is such a triumph.’

‘I was so sorry to hear it.’  This, however, as the reader knows, was a fib.

‘Sorry!’ said Sir Timothy.  ’Surely Lord Grex’s daughter must be a Conservative.’

’Oh yes;—­I am a Conservative because I was born one.  I think that people in politics should remain as they are born,—­unless they are very wise indeed.  When men come to be statesmen, and all that kind of thing, of course they can change backwards and forwards.’

‘I hope that is not intended for me, Lady Mabel.’

‘Certainly not.  I don’t knew enough about it to be personal.’  That, however, was again not quite true.  ’But I have the greatest possible respect for the Duke, and I think it a pity that he should be made unhappy by his son.  Don’t you like the Duke?’

’Well;—­yes;—­yes in a way.  He is a most respectable man; and has been a good public servant.’

‘All our lot are ruined, you know,’ said Dolly, talking of the races.

‘Who are your lot, Mr Longstaff?’

‘I’m one myself.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I’m utterly smashed.  Then there’s Percival.’

’I hope he has not lost much.  Of course you know he is my brother.’