“So glad you find him so,” she said. “Oh, by-the-bye, dear Mrs. Pomeroy, can you tell me anything about a Mr. Marston Loring? He goes everywhere, doesn’t he? I think I have seen him at your house.” “Oh, yes,” returned Mrs. Pomeroy, as placidly as ever, but with a decision which indicated that she was giving expression to a popular verdict, not merely to an opinion of her own. “He is quite a young man to know. Very clever, and rising. I don’t know what his people were; he has been so successful that it really doesn’t signify, you know. He lives in chambers--I don’t remember where, but it is a very good address.” “Has he money?” asked Mrs. Romayne. “I really don’t know,” said Mrs. Pomeroy. “He is doing extremely well at the bar. By the way, they say,” and herewith Mrs. Pomeroy lowered her voice and confided to her interlocutor two or three details in connection with Marston Loring’s private life--the life which in the world no one is supposed to recognise--which might have been considered by no means to his credit. They were not details which affected his society character in any way, however, and Mrs. Romayne only laughed with such slight affectation of reprobation as a woman of the world should show. “Men are all alike, I suppose,” she said, with that fashionable indulgence which has probably done as much as anything else towards making men “all alike.” “By-the-bye, he was Lord Dunstan’s best man, wasn’t he?” Mrs. Pomeroy was just confirming to Mr. Marston Loring what was evidently a certificate of social merit, when Julian and Miss Pomeroy reappeared, and Mrs. Romayne, with an exclamation at herself as a “frightful gossip,” turned to the shopman, who had been waiting her pleasure at a discreet distance, and transacted her business. “We haven’t settled anything about this trying business of the twenty-one stall-holders,” said Mrs. Pomeroy plaintively, as she finished. “Now, I wonder--we were thinking of taking a turn in the Park, weren’t we, Maud?” Mrs. Pomeroy had a curious little habit of constantly referring to her daughter. “It would be so kind of you, dear Mrs. Romayne, if you would send your carriage home and take a turn with us, you and Mr. Romayne, and I would take you home, of course. I really am anxious to know what you advise, for there seems to be an idea that I am in some way responsible for the awkwardness. So absurd, you know. I am quite sure I have only done as I was told.” Apparently it had not occurred to Mrs. Pomeroy that to do as you are told by four or five different people with totally different ends in view is apt to lead to confusion.