“Yes; but you know you always found I was to be trusted; so tell me your troubles now. It will be a relief to you, and let us see--two heads, being better than one--if we cannot find a remedy for them.” “Don’t bother me, Delaval, I cannot.” “You mean that you cannot speak of your troubles?” “Yes! I mean just that. I can’t talk of them, at least to _you_.” “It would be better to talk of them to me, Trixy, than to Lady Smiles. She is a chattering, double-faced woman.” “Lady Smiles! Why, what has she been saying? What _dare_ she say of me?” Trixy asks feverishly, lifting up a flushed face. “Only letting out a few foolish confidences. You see Lady Smiles may possibly fancy the same man as you may do; and women are horribly spiteful to one another when a man comes between them!” “I don’t understand what you mean?” she stammers, growing quite white; “and as for my troubles, you must not think that I have any complaint to make against Mr. Stubbs,” she goes on with curious eagerness: “He is really devoted to me, anticipating my wants, lavishing costly things on me, caring for me ten times more than I merit, as I cannot help thinking when I recollect that I married him, hating and despising him!” “But you care a little for him now, don’t you?” “Yes, I care for him a little more now,” she replies very doubtfully. “It is true that I ought to care for him, for he is kindness itself, but----” Here the blue eyes fill with large tears again, and Lord Delaval frowns as he realises that Lady Smiles--Trixy’s bosom friend and _confidante_--has not been untruthful in her insinuations. Percy Rayne is one of her admirers, and it is to him, as a connection of the Berangers, that she has confided her fears that Trixy is a _leetle_ imprudent in her conduct. “Trixy! I know you once had a foolish fancy for--for----” he hesitates at the name, he hates it so! struggles with himself, and at last wrenches the words out and almost flings them at her. “For--Carlton Conway! but it is of course impossible that you can still waste a thought or feeling on such an unmitigated scoundrel, a fellow who plays fast and loose with every woman he comes across--a hypocrite, a scoundrel!” But Trixy springs up from her chair and faces him; two scarlet spots burn in her cheeks, her eyes blaze, and she looks like a beautiful virago. “How _dare_ you speak of my friend like this, Lord Delaval! I forbid you to do it; I forbid you to say behind Mr. Conway’s back what you would not _presume_ to do before him! _Presume_, I say it again, for though he is an actor and you are an Earl, there is more to be respected in his little finger than in your whole body! He would not lower himself to abuse a man, just because that man had been loved better than himself!” “What do you mean?” Lord Delaval demands sternly. He is standing too now, with anger in his eyes, and wounded vanity in his breast.