These houses were a sort of asylum for that large nomade population of highly amusing qualities and no characters, the men who had not “done” everything, but “done” everybody, and of women still more dubious. In these houses the style of living was usually splendid. Wit has a sort of natural affinity for good cookery, and Beauty knows all the value of the “costly setting” which splendour confers. Last of all, there was that perfect liberty--the freedom from all the discipline of correcter establishments--which gave to every guest some prerogative of a master. You came as you liked, went as you liked, and very often, too, introduced whom you liked. What more could a man do if he were the rightful owner? Now, Grenfell was free of many such houses, but in none was he supreme. There was not one wherein his authority was dominant and his word a law. This he ambitioned; he craved impatiently for the time he could say to the men in his club, “I’ll take you down with me to Ladarelle’s--_I_’ll show you some real cock shooting--I’ll give you a day or two at Dalradern.” Would not that be fame--distinction--triumph? Ladarelle, too, was a man made by nature for such a part--careless, extravagant, sensual, fond of amusement, without caring in the least for the characters of those who contributed towards it, and inherently vain and open to the coarsest flattery. With him, therefore, Grenfell anticipated little trouble; with her he was by no means so sure. She puzzled him, and she seemed determined not to afford him any opportunity of knowing more of her. Her avoidance of him was plain and unmistakable. “Perhaps she fears, perhaps she distrusts me,” thought he. “I’ll take the earliest moment to assure her she need do neither, but may make me her friend implicitly.” He understood a good deal by that same word, which in ordinary life is not imputed to friendship. In fact, by friendship, he--as a great many others do--simply meant conspiracy. Thinking and reflecting in this vein, he lay, when the door opened, and young Ladarelle, in dressing-gown and slippers, entered. “What’s the meaning of all this, Grenfell?” said he. “My fellow, Fisk, who is just come over, says that Sir Within is perfectly well; he was in the stable-yard this morning at seven o’clock, and that it is the ward, Mademoiselle herself, is ill.” “He won’t have us at dinner, that’s all I know,” said Grenfell, yawning carelessly. “He says nothing whatever about me; scarcely civil, I think, considering I am supposed to be his guest.” “I’ll give you a dinner. You’ll pay me with interest one of these days, when you come to that estate.” “That I will.” “Do you know, as I lay here this last hour, I have been plotting out the sort of life a man could cut out for himself in a place like this. You are the sort of fellow to have the very pleasantest house in England.” “I should like to try.”