"You and I ought to be some sort of relations to each other, oughtn't we?" said Algernon, having taken in all the above particulars in a series of rapid observations. "Why?" returned the lady, without raising her eyes from her soup-plate. "Because you are Lady Seely's niece and I am her cousin." "Who says that I am Lady Seely's niece?" "I thought," stammered Algernon--"I fancied--you called Lord Seely 'Uncle Valentine?'" Even his equanimity, and a certain glow of complacency he felt at finding himself where he was, were a little disturbed by Miss Castalia's freezing manner. "I am Lord Seely's niece," returned she. Then, after a little pause, having finished her soup, she leaned back in her chair and stared at Algernon, who pretended--not quite successfully--to be unconscious of her scrutiny. Apparently, the result of it was favourable to Algernon; for the lady's manner thawed perceptibly, and she began to talk to him. She had evidently heard of him from Lady Seely, and understood the exact degree of his relationship to that great lady. "Did you ever meet the Dormers before?" asked Miss Kilfinane. "Never. How should I? You know I am the merest country mouse. I never was in London in my life, until last Friday." "Oh, but the Dormers don't live in town. Indeed, they are here very seldom. You might have met them; their place is in the West of England." Algernon, after a rapid balancing of pros and cons, resolved to be absolutely candid. With his brightest smile and most arched eyebrows, he began to give Miss Kilfinane an almost unvarnished description of his life at Whitford. Almost unvarnished; but it is no more easy to tell the simple truth only occasionally, than it is to stand quite upright only occasionally. Mind and muscles will fall back to their habitual posture. So that it may be doubted whether Miss Kilfinane received an accurate notion of the precise degree of poverty and obscurity in which the young man who was speaking to her had hitherto lived. "And so," said she, "you have come to London to----" "To seek my fortune," said Algernon merrily. "It is the proper and correct beginning to a story. And I think I have had a piece of good luck at the very outset by way of a good omen." Miss Kilfinane opened her eyes interrogatively, but said nothing. "I think it was a piece of luck for me," continued Algernon, emboldened by having secured the scornful lady's attention, and perhaps a little also by the wine he had drunk, "a great piece of good luck that Mr. Jack Price, whoever he may be, did not turn up this evening." "Why?" "Because, if he had, I should not have been allowed the honour of bringing you in to dinner." "Oh yes! I should have had to go in with Jack, I suppose," answered the lady with a little smile. "Please, Miss Kilfinane, who is Jack Price? I do so want to know!" "Jack Price is Lord Mullingar's son."