She sympathized, moreover, with the beautiful devotedness of the wealthy heiress to her ideal of man.  It had led her to make the acquaintance of old Lady Dacier, at the house in town, where Constance Asper had first met Percy; Mrs. Grafton Winstanley’s house, representing neutral territory or debateable land for the occasional intercourse of the upper class and the climbing in the professions or in commerce; Mrs. Grafton Winstanley being on the edge of aristocracy by birth, her husband, like Mr. Quintin Manx, a lord of fleets.  Old Lady Dacier’s bluntness in speaking of her grandson would have shocked Lady Wathin as much as it astonished, had she been less of an ardent absorber of aristocratic manners.  Percy was plainly called a donkey, for hanging off and on with a handsome girl of such expectations as Miss Asper.  ’But what you can’t do with a horse, you can’t hope to do with a donkey.’  She added that she had come for the purpose of seeing the heiress, of whose points of person she delivered a judgement critically appreciative as a horsefancier’s on the racing turf.  ’If a girl like that holds to it, she’s pretty sure to get him at last.  It ‘s no use to pull his neck down to the water.’

Lady Wathin delicately alluded to rumours of an entanglement, an admiration he had, ahem.

‘A married woman,’ the veteran nodded.  ’I thought that was off?  She must be a clever intriguer to keep him so long.’

‘She is undoubtedly clever,’ said Lady Wathin, and it was mumbled in her hearing:  ‘The woman seems to have a taste for our family.’

They agreed that they could see nothing to be done.  The young lady must wither, Mrs. Warwick have her day.  The veteran confided her experienced why to Lady Wathin:  ’All the tales you tell of a woman of that sort are sharp sauce to the palates of men.’

They might be, to the men of the dreadful gilded idle class!

Mrs. Warwick’s day appeared indefinitely prolonged, judging by Percy Dacier’s behaviour to Miss Asper.  Lady Wathin watched them narrowly when she had the chance, a little ashamed of her sex, or indignant rather at his display of courtliness in exchange for her open betrayal of her preference.  It was almost to be wished that she would punish him by sacrificing herself to one of her many brilliant proposals of marriage.  But such are women!—­precisely because of his holding back he tightened the cord attaching him to her tenacious heart.  This was the truth.  For the rest, he was gracefully courteous; an observer could perceive the charm he exercised.  He talked with a ready affability, latterly with greater social ease; evidently not acting the indifferent conqueror, or so consummately acting it as to mask the air.  And yet he was ambitious, and he was not rich.  Notoriously was he ambitious, and with wealth to back him, a great entertaining house, troops of adherents, he would gather influence, be propelled to leadership.  The vexation of a constant itch to speak to him on the subject, and the recognition, that he knew it all as well as she, tormented Lady Wathin.  He gave her comforting news of her dear cousin in the Winter.