She wrung the hands she had caught, whisked her veil over her flushed countenance and turned to leave. On the threshold of the shop she paused and flung back a quick reassurance. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll never betray you!” which Miss Polly Popple, overhearing, promptly carried to the awestruck ears of Miss Clara Smithson. “There’s a low-class girl just been in the showroom blackmailing Miss Pounce and gone off Heaving knows with how much hushmoney! ‘I won’t betray you,’ says she. And Miss Pounce looking after her, that distraught; you’d think she’d seen a ghost.” “Ah! my dear,” said Miss Smithson. “Retribution is gathering over that abandoned creature’s head.” CHAPTER VII IN WHICH IS MANIFEST THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA. “Oh, my Lady Kilcroney, I haven’t a moment! The most dreadful thing has happened!” Selina Vereker stood before the astonished Kitty. She was robed for Court ceremonial and looked a very splendid young woman in brocaded whites and silver laces. Her hair was full dressed and spread mightily in wings and curls. In her hand she held a posy of pink roses. But against all this elegance, the small countenance looked troubled; it was, indeed, contorted like that of a child about to cry. “I haven’t a moment,” she repeated. “The Princess Augusta expects me to attend her to the Duchess of Hampshire’s ball, and even now she will be waiting for me. But oh, my Lady, oh, my Lady, I thought I must run in to tell you--Sir Jasper has broken with me!” “Never say so, child! And the marriage for next Monday as ever was!” My Lady Kilcroney was in the long, narrow parlour which formed part of her set of rooms in St. James’s Palace. She, too, was in full fig; a marvel of glistening white, with the fashionable purple trimmings that proclaimed attachment to Royalty. The Bellairs diamonds shone on her throat and bodice, and diamonds shot from every angle of her piled and flying curls. At the Maid-of-Honour’s words she shook and sparkled and quivered in all her finery, looking like some magic tropical bird spreading out wings for battle. “The Princess Augusta is waiting for me!” cried Selina, and sobbed. “Let her wait,” quoth Kitty fiercely. She had enough familiarity with the Royals now to appreciate the fact that, after all, they were but human beings. “What has happened? Sit there and tell me this moment. Sir Jasper break off his engagement! Some fantastick of jealousy, sure. The man’s mad! Why, ’tis but this morning you showed me that wonderful knot of brilliants he gave you, child, on your complaining you had no fancy for a dead woman’s jewels.” Selina let herself fall into the chair indicated, and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, the disgrace!” she moaned. “It shall not be,” stormed her patroness. “You’ve dropped your roses, child.” “What, the roses? How--did I still hold them? Oh, my Lady, the roses, ’tis they undid me!” “Your roses undid you? Talk plain, in the name of common sense.”