“It does seem beastly unfair,” she said in a low voice to her sister, “that a girl such as that should be so awfully good-looking.  She ought to have a turned-up nose.”

“Thank you,” said Mary, “I have a turned-up nose myself, and I’ve got nothing to balance it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean a nice turned-up nose like yours,” said Jane; “I meant an ugly one.  Of course Lady Alanby wants her for Tommy.”  And her manner was not resigned.

“What she, or anyone else for that matter,” disdainfully, “could want with Tommy, I don’t know,” replied Mary.

“I do,” answered Jane obstinately.  “I played cricket with him when I was eight, and I’ve liked him ever since.  It is awful,” in a smothered outburst, “what girls like us have to suffer.”

Lady Mary turned to look at her curiously.

“Jane,” she said, “are you suffering about Tommy?”

“Yes, I am.  Oh, what a question to ask in a ballroom!  Do you want me to burst out crying?”

“No,” sharply, “look at the Prince.  Stare at that fat woman curtsying to him.  Stare and then wink your eyes.”

Lady Alanby was talking about Mount Dunstan.

“Lord Dunholm has given us a lead.  He is an old friend of mine, and he has been talking to me about it.  It appears that he has been looking into things seriously.  Modern as he is, he rather tilts at injustices, in a quiet way.  He has satisfactorily convinced himself that Lord Mount Dunstan has been suffering for the sins of the fathers—­which must be annoying.”

“Is Lord Dunholm quite sure of that?” put in Sir Nigel, with a suggestively civil air.

Old Lady Alanby gave him an unencouraging look.

“Quite,” she said.  “He would be likely to be before he took any steps.”

“Ah,” remarked Nigel.  “I knew Lord Tenham, you see.”

Lady Alanby’s look was more unencouraging still.  She quietly and openly put up her glass and stared.  There were times when she had not the remotest objection to being rude to certain people.

“I am sorry to hear that,” she observed.  “There never was any room for mistake about Tenham.  He is not usually mentioned.”

“I do not think this man would be usually mentioned, if everything were known,” said Nigel.

Then an appalling thing happened.  Lady Alanby gazed at him a few seconds, and made no reply whatever.  She dropped her glass, and turned again to talk to Betty.  It was as if she had turned her back on him, and Sir Nigel, still wearing an amiable exterior, used internally some bad language.

“But I was a fool to speak of Tenham,” he thought.  “A great fool.”

A little later Miss Vanderpoel made her curtsy to the exalted guest, and was commented upon again by those who looked on.  It was not at all unnatural that one should find ones eyes following a girl who, representing a sort of royal power, should have the good fortune of possessing such looks and bearing.