"Yes, she is altogether charming," said the Baron lazily, as if he were talking merely for the sake of conversation. "Very sweet, as you say, but not quite my style--there is a something--an intangible something wanting. She has _chic_--she has _savoir-faire_; but she has not--no, she has not that electrical wit which--which I have admired in others less conventionally beautiful." The Baron's half-veiled smile, a smile glancing from under lowered eyelids, hinted that this vital spark which was wanting in Christabel might be found in Mopsy. The damsel blushed, and looked down, conscious of eyelashes artistically treated. "I don't think Mrs. Tregonell has been quite happy in her married life," said Mopsy. "My brother and Mr. Tregonell are very old friends, don't you know; like brothers, in fact; and Mr. Tregonell tells Jack everything. I know his cousin didn't want to marry him--she was engaged to somebody else, don't you know, and that engagement was broken off, but he had set his heart upon marrying her--and his mother had set her heart upon the match--and between them they talked her into it. She never really wanted to marry him--Leonard has owned that to Jack in his savage moods. But I ought not to run on so--I am doing very wrong"--said Mopsy, hastily. "You may say anything you please to me. I am like the grave. I never give up a secret," said the Baron, who had settled himself comfortably in his chair, assured that Mopsy, once set going, would tell him all she could tell. "No, I don't believe--from what Jack says he says in his tempers--I don't believe she ever liked him," pursued Mopsy. "And she was desperately in love with the other one. But she gave him up at her aunt's instigation, because of some early intrigue of his--which was absurd, as she would have known, poor thing, if she had not been brought up in this out-of-the-way corner of the world." "The other one. Who was the other one?" asked the Baron. "The man who was shot at St. Nectan's Kieve last year. You must have heard the story." "Yes; Mr. St. Aubyn told me about it. And this Mr. Hamleigh had been engaged to Mrs. Tregonell? Odd that he should be staying in this house!" "Wasn't it? One of those odd things that Leonard Tregonell is fond of doing. He was always eccentric." "And during this visit was there anything--the best of women are mortal--was there anything in the way of a flirtation going on between Mrs. Tregonell and her former sweetheart?" "Not a shadow of impropriety," answered Mopsy heartily. "She behaved perfectly. I knew the story from my brother, and couldn't help watching them--there was nothing underhand--not the faintest indication of a secret understanding between them." "And Mr. Tregonell was not jealous?" "I cannot say; but I am sure he had no cause." "I suppose Mrs. Tregonell was deeply affected by Mr. Hamleigh's death?"