“The old story!” she said—­“Men always think a woman must be married to be happy.  It doesn’t at all follow.  I know heaps and heaps of married women, and they are in anything but an enviable state.  I would not change with one of them!”

“Would you like to be another Miss Fosby?” he suggested in a mirthful undertone.

She smiled.

“Well—­no!  But I would rather be Miss Fosby than Lady Wicketts!”

Here she rose, giving the signal for general adjournment to the drawing-room.  The windows of this apartment were set open, and a charming garden vista of lawn and terraee and rose-walk opened out before the eyes.

“Now for Bridge!” said Lady Beaulyon—­“I’m simply dying for a game!”

“So am I!” declared Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay—­“Lord Charlemont, you’ll play?”

“Charmed, I’m sure!” was the ready response.  “Where shall we put the card tables?  Near the window?  Such an enjoyable prospect!”

“We’ll have two tables, or even three,”—­said Lady Beaulyon; “I suppose most of us will play?”

“Oh yes!” “Why of course!” “I should think so!” “Just what we’re all longing for!” Such were the expressions of general delight and acceptance chorussed by the whole party.

“You’ll join, Lady Wicketts?”

“With pleasure!” and Lady Wicketts’ sunken old eyes gleamed with an anxious light over the furrows of flesh which encircled them, as she promptly deserted Miss Fosby, who had been sitting next to her, for the purpose of livelier entertainment;—­and in a moment there was a general gathering together in the wide embrasure of the window nook, and an animated discussion as to who should play Bridge and who should not.  Maryllia watched the group silently.  There were varying shades of expression on her mobile features.  She held Cicely’s hand in her own,—­and was listening to some of Adderley’s observations on quite ordinary topics, when suddenly, with, an impulsive movement, she let Cicely go, and with an ‘Excuse me!’ to Julian, went towards her guests.  She had made a resolve;—­it would be an attempt to swim against the social current, and it was fraught with difficulty and unpleasantness,—­yet she was determined to do it.  “If I am a coward now,” she thought—­“I shall never be brave!” Her heart beat uncomfortably, and she could feel the blood throbbing nervously in her veins, as she bent her mind to the attitude she was about to take up, regardless of mockery or censure.  Scraps of the window conversation fell on her ears—­“I won forty pounds last Wednesday,—­ it just paid my boot-bill!” said one young woman, laughing carelessly.

“Luckier than me!” retorted a man next to her—­“I had to pay a girl’s losses to the tune of a hundred.  It’s all right though!” And he grinned suggestively.

“Is she pretty?”

“Ripping!”

“I want to make up five hundred pounds this week,” observed Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, in the most serious and matter-of-fact way—­“I’ve won it all but a hundred and fifty.”