"Madame is very kind, but I beg she will excuse me," was the reply, in a voice that sounded young for so old a face, and yet that held an echo of such hopelessness in its cadences, it haunted Philip's ears unceasingly, and so dulled his senses that Miss James's most brilliant high æsthetical conversation fell unheeded, while Dick Darling's most daring slang evoked only a passing shudder of disapproval. Miss James shrugged her thin shoulders and voted him a good-looking bore, then turned her dark head and left shoulder upon him, and carried the battle into the enemy's camp, by appropriating Jack Howard, who, by all rights, social and flirtatious, belonged to pretty Baby Leonard. CHAPTER III. "THE SINS OF THE FATHERS." Philip thus left unmolested save by his own reflections, and quite innocent of his own shortcomings, was only aroused from a long brown study by hearing Freddy Slade appeal in his most drawling tones to his host, as he lifted his glass of Burgundy, and eyed it lovingly. "I say, Newbold, what an extraordinary woman you have managed to annex as a governess--capital wine this, what's its vintage?--I met her to-day, walkin' all alone in that beastly sycamore plantation of yours, and thinkin' she might be lonely offered myself as a companion. By George! you should have seen the look on her face as she declined; you wouldn't have thought me good enough to be her lap-dog--give you my word, never saw such scorn on any woman's face before. Who is she? A princess in disguise, an exiled Russian of high degree, or a disappointed tragedy actress?" "Oh, you must ask Esther," replied lazy George Newbold. "She's her latest importation." This was Mr. Newbold's usual way of getting rid of all troublesome or inconvenient questions. "It saved him trouble," he used to say, "and gave the wife the gratification of doing all the talking." "Esther will tell you, without being asked, _beau sire_," broke in that little matron; "I am very much in love with her, you must know; she is delightful, and she is mysterious, what more can you ask? She is the daughter of a Russian noble and a French girl of the bourgeoisie. You can imagine the story, it's for ever repeating itself. The marriage was a secret one, the young man's family refused to recognise it; he was recalled to Petersburg, and the girl offered money in lieu of her young husband, which she passionately rejected. Then followed the old story of hopeless waiting; her baby was born, and for a time she struggled bravely on, fighting shame and poverty hand to hand. But at last she succumbed, and death freed her from her share in life's battle.