“I mean a lady, that’s what I mean,” said the cook, with grim emphasis. “Consequently I don’t mean Miss Finucane, as she calls herself, though her real name’s Finigan, and she’s low Irish down to her boot-soles.” She took a long breath, and concluded: “And so I’d have told her to her face if his lordship hadn’t been there; but he’s a gentleman, when all’s said and done, and I’m sorry for him.” The cook spoke for her sex. Most women were sorry for Lord Alistair Stuart. When Molly saw Alistair rise from the table immediately after the cook’s stormy exit, her face fell. “You’re not going out again?” she protested. “I’ve got to,” was the answer. “Take me with you, then,” Molly demanded. “Can’t. I’m going to see Des Louvres.” “You’re always going there. What do you want to see him for?” “It’s on business to do with the Legitimists.” “Bother the Legitimists!” Molly was not a politician. Beyond the vague notion that all these pretenders of whom she heard so much enjoyed the secret patronage of the Pope, and must therefore be in some way inimical to that Protestantism which it had been her first lesson as a child to abjure and abhor, she was completely indifferent to their cause. “I won’t have you go,” she continued. “You’ve been out all day, and left me alone with those wretched servants. I want you to take me to the theatre.” “I’ve no money,” said Stuart impatiently. “Can’t you borrow some?” “Who from?” A name rose to Molly’s lips, but she hesitated to pronounce it. She looked at Stuart, and as their eyes met each knew what the other was thinking of. “No,” he declared hastily. “I’m sorry, Molly, but I must go. I promised. There’s to be somebody there that I must meet.” “Who?” “Well, it’s a sort of secret. You won’t talk about it?” “Who have I got to talk to?” The retort struck painfully on Alistair. That compassion for Molly which lay at the root of his refusal to leave her was stirred by the reminder of the poor little woman’s loneliness. She had no friends, she could have no friends in their present circumstances, and she had no interests in life apart from him. He felt that he was ill-treating her by this second absence in one day, and his voice softened as he explained: “It’s Don Juan. Des Louvres told me he doesn’t want it to be known that he’s in England.” The name was not familiar to Molly. “Who is he?” she asked, more with the object of detaining Stuart than from any real curiosity on the subject. Don Juan, in fact, only ranked as an heir-apparent in the Legitimist almanac, his father being still alive. He represented one of those families of decrepit and priest-ridden despots which were everywhere driven from the thrones of the Mediterranean by the great Liberal flood of the nineteenth century. Now the flood was beginning to abate, the wrongs of the past were fading from men’s minds, and the figures of these discrowned Princes stood forth once more, surrounded by the halo of romantic misfortune.