My Lord was not misled by the quietness of her tone. “Ah, God help you, Kitty,” he exclaimed, flustered. “Sure you never believed you could keep a lad of that kidney with his nose in a desk? Didn’t he off with himself with his first three months’ salary, and hasn’t his luck been the talk of Bath, barring the let-down of a sorrel filly at the point-to-point? And sure, if it hadn’t been that the dice has been going against him the last three or four days----” he broke off. Kitty sat like an image of scorn; and my Lord, seeing that his mission did not seem likely to be blessed with success, proceeded in nettled tones: “The long and the short of it is, I’ve promised Jocelyn we’d see to it. ’Tis only a matter of ninety-seven pound ten, when all is said and done. And that to a livery stableman.” He drew a crumpled sheet of blue paper from his pocket as he spoke. Kitty unexpectedly stretched out her hand; with a sigh of relief he put it into it. “I knew you’d be the first to say it ought to be paid, my dearest life.” “Certainly, it ought to be paid, Denis.” “You wouldn’t wish the poor dear lad--and him as pleasant over the green cloth as ever I met--to be penned up in the sponging house. Besides which,” added Kilcroney, in imprudent reminiscence, “don’t I know, isn’t it the mischief once you get into one of those holes! ’Tis like a sheep in a ditch: the sky is black with crows after you in a twinkling.” “Very sad,” said my Lady. She tendered the blue paper back with an indifferent gesture. “Have you despatched Pompey, Lydia?” Lord Kilcroney put his hands behind him. “Nay! nay!” cried he, with the uneasy boisterousness of one who would force the issue as a joke. “’Tis your business, me darling.” “I thought you wanted it paid, my Lord?” “And maybe,” cried he, laughing yet more violently, “you think I can pay it?” He began pulling his pockets out. “Sure that would be the joke entirely! I’m cleaned through. There ain’t a single chinker left in my purse, Kitty, and it’s the lovely red silk one you made me yourself last Christmas. Troth! I am this moment what they say Nature abhors----” “And what’s that, Sir?” “A vacuum, my love,” quoth my Lord, with a great guffaw. Kitty contemplated him a moment, icily. Then she said: “All my sympathies are with Nature.” Kilcroney reddened, shrugged his shoulders, and replacing the linings of his pockets in their normal position, thrust his hands into them, and sauntered out of the room. There was nothing further to be done; the moment was unpropitious. Kitty balled the blue sheet with an angry hand, and flung it after him, and Pamela, who had never finished that phrase of directions, rose from the _escritoire_ and picked it up. The action was performed with so much composure that it seemed but the natural outcome of her good manners. “Don’t give it back to me, child!” exclaimed Kitty with tartness. “Throw it into the waste paper basket. Have you wrote your message?”