“You forget, mamma, that a taste for bloodshed is one of the most refined tastes in the world,” said Ada, who was herself fond of hunting when she had a chance, and never was better pleased than when she could lunch with a shooting party at the cover-side. Ada made a grimace behind Gus’s back, and said “Little monster!” to the other young ladies. “Ah, poor Paul! We used to see so much of him,” she said, “when he was the man, poor fellow, and no one had ever heard of this little Creole. But parents are nothing if not prudent,” Miss Westland added; “and now the tropics are in the ascendant, and poor Paul is nowhere. What can one do?” she said with a shrug of her shoulders up to her ears. Dolly Stainforth, who was of the party, but not old enough or important enough to say anything, grew pale with righteous indignation. She was very well aware that Paul had never “seen much” of the family at Westland Towers: but that they should now pretend to hold him at arm’s length stung her to the heart. This took place at a garden party, and the explanation about Paul had been made in the midst of a great many people of the neighbourhood, who had all been very sorry for Paul in their day, yet were all beginning now to turn towards the new-risen sun. Dolly had turned her back upon them, and gone off by herself in bitterly-suppressed indignation, sore and wounded, though not for her own sake, when she encountered Sir Gus, who had spied her in a turning of the shrubbery. George Westland had spied her too, but had been stopped by his mother on his way to her, and might be seen in the distance standing gloomily on the outskirts of a group of notables, with whom he was supposed to be ingratiating himself, gazing towards the _bosquet_ in which the object of his affections had disappeared. “What is the matter, Miss Dolly?” Sir Gus had said. “Oh, nothing. I was not crying,” Dolly said, with a sob. “I am too indignant to cry. It is the horridness of people,” she cried with an outburst of wrath and grief. Sir Gus was distressed. He did not like to see any one cry, much less this dainty little creature, who was almost his first acquaintance in the place. “Don’t,” he said, touching her shoulder lightly with his brown hand. “Whatever it is it cannot be worth crying about. None of them can do any harm to you.” “Harm to _me_! I wish they could,” said Dolly; “that would not matter much. But don’t believe them, don’t you believe them: a little while ago they were all for Paul--nobody was so nice as Paul--and now it is all you, and Paul, they say, is nowhere. Do you think it is like a lady to say that poor Paul is ‘nowhere,’ only because he has lost his property, and you have got it?” cried Dolly, turning with fury, which it was difficult to restrain, upon the poor little baronet. He changed colour: of course he knew that it was his position, and not any special gifts of his own, which recommended him; yet he did not like the thought.