"Is he, Mr. Frere? You'll excuse my saying that I don't follow you; that I don't know why Mr. Streightley is lucky." "Did you not yourself say that he was very rich, Miss Guyon, and that you had been told so?" said Gordon, with more warmth than he had previously exhibited. "Society acts as this gentleman's _avant-coureur_, and repeats his claim to respect wherever he goes; and of course he finds people prepared to proffer him ready-made honour." The bitterness in his tone jarred on Kate's ear. His face was averted, so that there was no need for her to restrain the half-inquiring, half-loving gaze with which she looked up at him as she said, "I never knew you cynical before, Mr. Frere, and I don't think the mood becomes you. Surely the notion that wealth is the most desirable of all possessions is utterly exploded. For my own part, I think that riches in a man--I mean when they are so great as to be talked about--are something against him; something to be got over, like his being black, or having a hump-back." "This is a very refreshing doctrine, Miss Guyon; but I'm afraid it has not many disciples; and even you would lean to the side of the modest competence and----" "I would lean to nothing; I would give way to nothing so palpably sordid and base." "You are strangely in earnest on this point, Miss Guyon." "I am thoroughly in earnest about it; and I----" "You cannot tell with what delight I hear it, Miss Guyon. I--you have removed a certain distrust which has prevented me from----" "As you say"--broke in the strident voice of Mr. Guyon, as he with Streightley and Yeldham "formed up in line"--"In a formal dinner-party you may sit side by side with people and never know any more about them than if they were at opposite ends of the table. You're quite right, Streightley, quite right. But to-night we're quite alone. Katharine, my dear, Mr. Streightley has promised to take us as he finds us, and come home to dinner to-day." Miss Guyon bowed, and murmured her delight. Then said _sotto voce_, "It is Mrs. Tresillian's night, papa, you recollect; and Lady Henmarsh is coming to fetch me." "O yes, my dear; of course, of course. Lady Henmarsh coming, eh! But that won't make any difference." "No, papa; only you won't mind my running away." "Of course not, my dear; of course not, And how is my young friend Gordon Frere? Blooming as usual. No need to ask that. Give your arm to an old boy, Gordon; and trot him round, and show him all the--the beauty of the day." Gordon, who was eminently disgusted at the interruption of his conversation with Kate, and who was showing his feelings in his knitted brow and puckered mouth, had any hopes of a further _causerie_ which he might have entertained dashed to the ground by Mr. Guyon, who passed his delicate lavender-glove through his young friend's arm and led him off in triumph, while Streightley and Yeldham followed on either side of Miss Guyon.