“I’m glad to see you take it like that!” he stated, thinking within himself of Neville Moray’s visible melancholy when he had met him at a levee some two weeks after Laurence’s wedding. “There’s never any use,” he resumed, “in crying over derailed love-affairs, and this being so, I wish you’d come and dine with us here to-night. You’ll meet the Palitzins and some Breton friends of Laurence’s, the Marquis and Mademoiselle de Plenhöel. They are near relatives of Prince Basil, and it was at their château in Brittany that Laurence first met her husband.” Wynne rose and drew on his left glove before answering. He wanted just that infinitesimal space of time to make up his mind, and when he had accomplished this task the trick was done. “Thank you very much, Sir Robert. I’ll come with pleasure if you’ll let me,” he said, smiling. “Good morning, Lady Seton. I’m off!” he added as, turning, he found himself face to face with her fur-wrapped figure. “Sir Robert has been good enough to invite me for to-night, and so, as the saying is over here, ‘_Au plaisir, madame, de vous revoir_.’” He was gone, and in all the majesty of her matronly disapproval Lady Seton bore down upon her husband. “I am amazed at you, Robert, really amazed! What could induce you to invite that poor young man with Laurence and Basil? I trust you may have thought of asking Captain Moray to be here also. It would really insure the success of the party!” she concluded, sarcastically. Sir Robert’s Olympian brow reddened--his brow always became Olympian the moment his wife appeared upon the scene. “You are wholly correct,” he said, stiffly, “for that is exactly what I have done!” Lady Seton raised her muff toward heaven--a painted one, with a Greek key pattern and cupids disporting themselves among roses in merry French fashion--let the muff sink to the level of her somewhat flat waist, and sat abruptly down on “Lady Hamilton,” who awoke with a smothered groan of surprise and pain. “My Heaven! What have I done?” shrieked the lady, getting on her feet again with surprising agility. “Oh, my poor, poor lovey!” she moaned, hugging the fat, wheezing little dog to her fur bosom. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”