Roderick Lowther was received very graciously by the two ladies, and cordially welcomed by Mr. Tredethlyn. Harcourt, watching his brother ensconced in a nook of Maude’s favourite ottoman, and discoursing at his ease upon Belgian notabilities, was troubled by dark misgivings of danger. “I must find the fellow a quarry for himself,” he thought, “or he’ll be trying to stalk my game. He asks me to introduce him to an eligible _parti_ as coolly as if life were a five-act comedy, with the traditional heiress always waiting to fall a prey to the traditional adventurer. An heiress! in these days of marvellous commercial successes there must be such things as heiresses. But the question is where to look for them.” One of Mr. Tredethlyn’s pompous retainers opened the drawing-room door at this moment and announced-- “Mr. and Miss Grunderson.” “Egad!” thought Harcourt Lowther, “there’s the solution of my difficulty. Why not Miss Grunderson? Miss Grunderson is an heiress, or ought to be, if there is stability in any part of the commercial universe.” A young lady with a very rosy face, a young lady decidedly inclined to that quality which in the fair sex is elegantly entitled _embonpoint_, a young lady who was surrounded by surging flounces of pink areophane, dotted about with more pink rosebuds and larger full-blown roses than were ever worn by any young lady with a judicious recollection of the sweeps on Mayday, bounced into the room, and bounced up to Mrs. Tredethlyn; while an elderly gentleman, who was evidently the young lady’s papa, beamed mildly at the company across an enormous expanse of embroidered shirt-front and black waistcoat. But in the network that Harcourt Lowther has woven Miss Grunderson is destined to be considerably entangled, and deserves to be introduced more ceremoniously in a fresh chapter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXI. THE DIPLOMATIST’S POLICY.