“Monsieur Edouard,” said she, caressing the insular barbarity of speech with her tongue, and her pet with fluttering finger-tips, “who have sold himself the birtheright to a dish of _potage. Oh que si_! _mais si jeunesse savait_! But I have heard of Monsieur Edouard; and also I have heard of Monsieur Paine.” Her voice was as artificial as her manner. Playing on the alto, it would squeak occasionally like a greasy fiddle-bow. And her age, despite the smooth and rather expressionless contour of her features, might have been anything from thirty-five to sixty. “But she has not wrinkles to cement and overlay,” thought Ned, “else would she never dare to laugh so boldly.” He did not like the truculence of her eyes; nor, indeed, the whole air of rather professional effrontery that characterised her. Nevertheless there was that about her, about the atmosphere she seemed to exhale, that curiously confounded him. “I have not the honour of an introduction,” he said, a little perplexed, “nor the right to return madame’s compliment--if, indeed, it was meant for one.” “Not in the least,” she said, with an insolent laugh. “I have no applause for the _héritier légitime_ that is a traitor to his trust.” She sank back, toying with her little red-furred beast. My lord laughed acidly, but made no offer to enlighten or question his nephew. “So you have returned,” he said only. “All the devil of it lies in that, and” (he scanned his young relative affrontingly) “in your unconverted vanity of blackguardism. Get up, Jepps.” Ned laughed in perfect good-humour, as the curricle sped away. “After all,” thought he, “perhaps it _is_ hard to be claimed for uncle by a rag-picker. I will resume my decorative self, find out where my lord lodges, and wait upon him in form and civility.” He had his insignificant baggage removed to temporary quarters, ransacked the mean little town for what moderately becoming outfit it could yield, shaved, rested, and refreshed himself, and issued forth once more on duty’s quest. “And what is the old man doing here?” he thought; “and who is the enigmatical Cyprian?”--whereby, it will be observed, he jumped to baseless conclusions. But he gave himself no great concern about the matter, admitting that the probable explanation of his uncle’s presence in the sea-port town lay in that flotsam and jetsam of the Palais Royal bagnios that many tides washed up on the coast. “He may be acting the part of a noble and unvenerable wrecker,” thought he--it must be confessed, consistently with the common estimate of his kinsman.