As can be understood in the light of that interview in the smoking-room, the two gentlemen were late in arriving upstairs, and when Stanley did put in an appearance, Miss Fitzgerald required all her courage to dare to claim him as her exclusive property and carry him off to the comparative seclusion of the conservatory, for black care sat heavy on his brow, and her interview promised to be anything but agreeable. However, she was nothing if not courageous, and opened the attack at once, on the ground that the defensive is always the weakest position. "What an old bear you are to-night, Jimsy. I couldn't get a word out of you at dinner, and now you look as glum as if you'd lost your last friend." "I've been talking to Lieutenant Kingsland," he said bluntly. "Dear me, if it always has as bad an effect I must contrive to keep you two apart in the future." "He's been telling me about your relations with Darcy. Confound it, Belle!--it's too bad of you! Why, he's a beastly cad. I wouldn't have him in my house, and to think that the woman I--well, any woman I respect as much as I do you--should be on intimate terms with a man like that, makes my blood boil. Great Heavens, have some consideration for your friends, if you haven't for yourself! Think of what will be said of you; think----" "Don't do the heroic, Jimsy, it doesn't become you," she interrupted. "Give me a cigarette, and see if you can't talk this matter over without going all to tatters." "You smoke too much. I don't approve of ladies smoking. It seems so common." "Nonsense. It's uncommon not to. I'm dying for a whiff, and one never gets a chance in that crowd of old fogies. Thank you--now what's all this disturbance about Colonel Darcy? I declare, I almost believe you are becoming an old fogy yourself." "I didn't even know you knew him-- Darcy, I mean-- I object to him strongly." "Really, Mr. Stanley, I don't run my acquaintances on the lines of your choosing." "Of course not; but I may claim the privilege of a friend." "To make yourself uncommonly disagreeable; I suppose you may--and I was feeling so amiable too--just in the mood for an old-time chat. But it can't be helped. Colonel Darcy's an old friend, and was very kind to me at a time when I needed friends and hadn't many. I don't know what he has done or not done, and I don't care. I learned that he was to be in this neighbourhood shortly on business, and, wishing to make some return for his past kindness, I proposed to my aunt to invite him here, and she, who's a woman after your own heart, refused--because, forsooth, he didn't get on well with his wife--as if his wife mattered to me-- I certainly didn't want to invite her." "I assure you," burst out the Secretary, "that she's a most charming woman, and that her husband has treated her like the cad and brute he is." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Stanley. I didn't know you were posing as the knight-errant of hysterical wives."