"Lor', don't she run on!" "Now come along, Uncle!" cried the girl. "I've found some topping chocolates, a new kind. They're priceless," and she dragged Uncle off to the end of the table. "Who was that?" demanded Miss Brent of Elton, disapproval in her look and tone. "Lady Peggy Bristowe," replied Elton. Miss Brent was impressed. The Bristowes traced their ancestry so far back as to make William the Norman's satellites look almost upstarts. "She is a little overpowering at first, isn't she?" remarked Elton, smiling in spite of himself at the conflicting emotions depicted upon Miss Brent's face; but Lady Peggy gave her no time to reply. She was back again like a shaft of April sunshine. "Here, open your mouth, Goddy," she cried, "they're delicious." Elton did as he was bid, and Lady Peggy popped a chocolate in, then wiping her finger and thumb daintily upon a ridiculously small piece of cambric, she stood in front of Elton awaiting his verdict. "Like it?" she demanded, her head on one side like a bird, and her whole attention concentrated upon Elton. "Apart from a suggestion of furniture polish," began Elton, "it is----" "Hun!" cried Lady Peggy as she whisked over to where she had left Uncle. "Lady Peggy is rather spoiled," said Elton to Miss Brent. "I fear she trades upon having the prettiest ankles in London." Miss Brent turned upon Elton one glance, then with head in air and lips tightly compressed, she stalked away. Elton watched her in surprise, unconscious that his casual reference to the ankles of the daughter of a peer had been to Miss Brent the last straw. "Hate at the prow and virtue at the helm," he murmured as she disappeared. Miss Brent was now convinced beyond all power of argument to the contrary that her call had landed her in the very midst of an ultra-fast set. She was unaware that Godfrey Elton was notorious among his friends for saying the wrong thing to the right people. "You never know what Godfrey will say," his Aunt Caroline had remarked on one occasion when he had just confided to the vicar that all introspective women have thick ankles, "and the dear vicar is so sensitive." It seemed that whenever Elton elected to emerge from the mantle of silence with which he habitually clothed himself, it was in the presence of either a sensitive vicar or someone who was sensitive without being a vicar. Once when Lady Gilcray had rebuked him for openly admiring Jenny Adam's legs, which were displayed each night to an appreciative public at the Futility Theatre, Elton had replied, "A woman's legs are to me what they are to God," which had silenced her Ladyship, who was not quite sure whether it was rank blasphemy or a classical quotation; but she never forgave him.