“Well, you see I wasn’t far wrong about Miss de Frey and Courtenay Youghal, was I?” he chirruped, almost before he had seated himself.  Francesca was to be spared any further spinning-out of her period of uncertainty.  “Yes, it’s officially given out,” he went on, “and it’s to appear in the Morning Post to-morrow.  I heard it from Colonel Deel this morning, and he had it direct from Youghal himself.  Yes, please, one lump; I’m not fashionable, you see.”  He had made the same remark about the sugar in his tea with unfailing regularity for at least thirty years.  Fashions in sugar are apparently stationary.  “They say,” he continued, hurriedly, “that he proposed to her on the Terrace of the House, and a division bell rang, and he had to hurry off before she had time to give her answer, and when he got back she simply said, ‘the Ayes have it.’” St. Michael paused in his narrative to give an appreciative giggle.

“Just the sort of inanity that would go the rounds,” remarked Francesca, with the satisfaction of knowing that she was making the criticism direct to the author and begetter of the inanity in question.  Now that the blow had fallen and she knew the full extent of its weight, her feeling towards the bringer of bad news, who sat complacently nibbling at her tea-cakes and scattering crumbs of tiresome small-talk at her feet, was one of wholehearted dislike.  She could sympathise with, or at any rate understand, the tendency of oriental despots to inflict death or ignominious chastisement on messengers bearing tidings of misfortune and defeat, and St. Michael, she perfectly well knew, was thoroughly aware of the fact that her hopes and wishes had been centred on the possibility of having Elaine for a daughter-in-law; every purring remark that his mean little soul prompted him to contribute to the conversation had an easily recognizable undercurrent of malice.  Fortunately for her powers of polite endurance, which had been put to such searching and repeated tests that day, St. Michael had planned out for himself a busy little time-table of afternoon visits, at each of which his self-appointed task of forestalling and embellishing the newspaper announcements of the Youghal-de Frey engagement would be hurriedly but thoroughly performed.

“They’ll be quite one of the best-looking and most interesting couples of the Season, won’t they?” he cried, by way of farewell.  The door closed and Francesca Bassington sat alone in her drawing-room.

Before she could give way to the bitter luxury of reflection on the downfall of her hopes, it was prudent to take precautionary measures against unwelcome intrusion.  Summoning the maid who had just speeded the departing St. Michael, she gave the order:  “I am not at home this afternoon to Lady Caroline Benaresq.”  On second thoughts she extended the taboo to all possible callers, and sent a telephone message to catch Comus at his club, asking him to come and see her as soon as he could manage before it was time to dress for dinner.  Then she sat down to think, and her thinking was beyond the relief of tears.