“Ah,” said her mother playfully, “I saw that your thoughts were otherwhere.  Your eyes wandered constantly to the door.  He may come late.  By the way, where is my dearest son?”

“Basil?  He went out this morning.  I believe he intended to call on Aunt Selina.”

Mrs. Octagon lost a trifle of her suave manner, and became decidedly more human.  “Then I wish he would not call there,” she said sharply.  “Selina Loach is my own sister, but I do not approve of her.”

“She is a poor, lonely dear, mother.”

“Poor, my child, she is not, as I have every reason to believe she is well endowed with this world’s goods.  Lonely she may be, but that is her own fault.  Had she behaved as she should have done, Lady Caranby would have been her proud title.  As to dear,” Mrs. Octagon shrugged her fine shoulders, “she is not a woman to win or retain love.  Look at the company she keeps.  Mr. Hale, her lawyer, is not a nice man.  I have espied something evil in his eye.  That Clancy creature is said to be rich.  He needs to be, if only to compensate for his rough way.  They visit her constantly.”

“You have forgotten Mrs. Herne,” said Juliet, rising, and beginning to pace the room restlessly and watch out of the window.

“I have never met Mrs. Herne.  And, indeed, you know, that for private reasons I have never visited Selina at that ridiculous house of hers.  When were you there last, Juliet, my child?”

The girl started and appeared embarrassed.  “Oh, a week ago,” she said hurriedly, then added restlessly, “I wonder why Basil does not come back.  He has been away all day.”

“Do you know why he has called on your aunt, my dear?”

“No,” said Juliet, in a hesitating manner, and turned again to look out of the window.  Then she added, as though to escape further questioning, “I have seen Mrs. Herne only once, but she seemed to me a very nice, clever old woman.”

“Clever,” said Mrs. Octagon, raising her eyebrows, which were as strongly marked as those of her sister, “no.  She does not belong to The Circle.”

“A person can be clever without that,” said Juliet impatiently.

“No.  All the clever people in London come here, Juliet.  If Mrs. Herne had been brilliant, she would have found her way to our Shrine.”

Juliet shrugged her shoulders and curled her pretty lip.  She did not appreciate her privileges in that house.  In fact, a word distinctly resembling “Bother!” escaped from her mouth.  However, she went on talking of Mrs. Herne, as though to keep her mother from questioning her further.

“There is a mystery about Mrs. Herne,” she said, coming to the fire; “for I asked Aunt Selina who she was, and she could not tell me.”

“That is so like Selina,” rejoined Mrs. Octagon tartly, “receiving a person of whom she knows nothing.”

“Oh, she does know a little.  Mrs. Herne is the widow of a Spanish merchant, and she struck me as being foreign herself.  Aunt Selina has known her for three years, and she has come almost every week to play whist at Rose Cottage.  I believe she lives at Hampstead!”