"Just as if you were an experienced fine lady," laughed Mademoiselle; "how quickly my woodland nymph has accustomed herself to the ways of this crowded fashionable town! But to return to Lord Lavendale: if you do not meet him oftener than you do other people, I think that at least you enjoy more of his society. You and he are often talking together, Mrs. Amelia told me." "O yes, we are very good friends," the girl answered carelessly. "I think he is pleasanter than most people." "Heart-whole, and likely to remain so, as far as Lavendale is concerned," thought the little Frenchwoman with satisfaction; for she knew too much of his lordship's past history to approve of him as a suitor for her beloved pupil. After a pause she said, "By the bye, Rena, Mr. Durnford called yesterday when you were out with Lady Tredgold. It is the fifth time he has called and found you gone abroad." Irene blushed crimson. "O, why did you not beg him to stop till I came home?" she asked. "My dear child, this is not my house. I have no right to give invitations." "Yes, you have. You could have detained him if you had liked. The fifth visit! What must he think of me?" "He confessed that he thought you somewhat a gad-about. He told me that he tried to waylay you in public resorts--in the Ring, or at the auction-rooms; but even there he had been unfortunate: when he went west, you had gone east." Irene looked piteously disappointed. "Five times! and I have not been told of one of those visits!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Why was that?" "Because your aunt's footmen forgot all about it, I daresay," replied Mademoiselle. "Footmen have a knack of forgetting such visitors, especially when the visitor wears a shabby coat and may forget to emphasise his inquiries with a crown. I doubt you would never have heard of this last visit, if I had not happened to come in from my walk in St. James's Park just as Mr. Durnford knocked at the door. He stopped for a few minutes' chat on the doorstep. I told him you were to be at the opera to-night." "Then perhaps he will go there!" cried Rena, suddenly becoming radiant, and confirming the shrewd little Frenchwoman in a suspicion which she had harboured for some time. What a pity that Herrick Durnford was poor, and without rank or lineage to counterbalance his poverty! She knew that Squire Bosworth would favour Lavendale's suit, and would in all probability disinherit his daughter if she presumed to marry a penniless scribbler. Mdlle. Latour had enjoyed opportunities of studying the character of both these young men, and she had decided that Durnford's was the nobler nature, though there was assuredly some good in Lavendale. CHAPTER XI. "AND BEAUTY DRAWS US WITH A SINGLE HAIR."