'Lady Oxford! Lady Oxford!' she repeated almost pettishly. 'Upon my word, the woman has infected you. You can speak of nothing else. Political?' and she laughed maliciously. 'That she is, and on both sides. She changes her party more often than an ambitious statesman. For politics to my Lady Oxford are just pawns in the great game of Love.' 'Oh, Love,' exclaimed Wogan, with a recollection of Mr. Scrope. 'Is Love her quarry?' 'She will play cat to any man's mouse,' returned Lady Mary indifferently. 'And there are many mice?' Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. However, Wogan's appetite for information was only whetted, and to provoke Lady Mary to speak more freely he made an inventory of Lady Oxford's charms. He dwelt on her attractions. Lady Mary played with her fan, pulled savagely at the feathers, opened it, shut it up, while Wogan discoursed serenely on item--a dark eye, big, with a glint of light in it like sunshine through a thundercloud. Lady Mary laughed scornfully. Wogan went on to item--a profusion of blackish-brown hair, very silky, with a gloss, and here and there a gold thread in the brown; item--a Barbary shape; item--an admirable instep and a most engaging ankle. 'It would look very pretty in the stocks,' Lady Mary snapped out. Wogan shook his head with a knowing air. ''Twould slip out.' 'Not if I had the locking of it in,' she exclaimed with a vicious stamp of the foot, and rose, as though to cross the room. 'I have omitted the lady's most adorable merit,' said Wogan thoughtfully. Lady Mary was altogether human, and did not cross the room. 'She has the greatest affection for your ladyship. She spoke of your ladyship indeed in quite unmeasured terms, and while praising your ladyship's wit would not have it that one single spark was due to the cleverness of your ladyship's friends. Upon that point she was most strenuous.' Lady Mary sat down again. The stroke had evidently told. 'I am most grateful to her,' she said, 'and when did Lady Oxford show such a sweet condescension towards me?' 'But a few weeks ago at Brampton Bryan, where she was nursing her husband with an assiduous devotion.' 'I have known her show the like devotion before, when her losses at cards have driven her from London.' 'So she gambles?' inquired Wogan. 'Altogether, then, a dangerous friend for George.' Lady Mary nodded.