“Stop that nonsense, Elizabeth!” Sir Robert, more Olympian than ever, reproved her. “You couldn’t hurt the brute if you tried. Why, she’s like a feather pillow--most unsportsmanlike to overfeed her as you do. And now please attend to me,” he continued, austerely, easing with a square-toed finger the uncompromisingly angular collar around his neck. “I asked Moray, as I told you, and now I’ve asked Wynne to dine--that’s an accomplished fact. But what I wish to impress upon you is that, Princess or no Princess, I don’t propose to be made to feel like a child in my own house.” He cast a masterful look at the topsy-turvy cupids gamboling above his head, but did not trouble to smile at the idea of having claimed them and the attached hostelry as his own. “If Laurence has so little tact and monde as to be annoyed because she meets her old flames at our table, let her be annoyed; I don’t care a fig about it. So that’s clear, is it not?” He set his foot with an air of extreme finality upon the hearth-rug, volte-faced, and strode to the door to meet his hat, coat, and cane in the hands of the rigid Berkley; leaving his wife, in one of her most acid moods, to follow behind. The dinner-table that night was set with all the luxury that money can suggest to French taste, and it was difficult to realize that the silver and crystal, the porcelain and flowers, had not been preordained and arranged by the especial orders of a distinguished hostess. As Sir Robert said, condescendingly, “They manage these things very well in Paris.” Contrary to what Lady Seton had anticipated, a cheerful merriment held the guests from the moment they sat down, and soon the conversation--never failing in genial humor--actually rose to the higher level of wit. This was due chiefly to Basil and to young Wynne, who seemed--much to Laurence’s annoyance and surprise--to hit it off from the first. Lady Seton, usually what her husband described as a “damper,” became as nearly responsive to the pleasing atmosphere of the occasion as was possible for her to be, while Sir Robert, to everybody’s astonishment, plunged headlong--after the fish--into excellent yachting anecdotes. Tubbed and razored, and shedding cheerful waves of bay-rum and hair tonic about him, his ample shirt-front embellished by two large pearls gleaming like moons through mist, he expanded more and more as the well-conceived menu fulfilled its alluring promises, and cast glances of roseate satisfaction around the board. “Elizabeth is a fool!” he commented, inwardly. “They’re all enjoying themselves like periwinkles at high tide.... By the way, she’s got herself up to his Majesty’s taste, has Elizabeth. She’s positively scratched five years off her age.” And so she had. For on occasions of ceremony, in spite of her Galliphobe tendencies, Lady Seton knew not only how to buy, but how to wear a Parisian gown of the best Place Vendome make, besides which her neck and arms were still more than presentable,