"He is a very good fellow, and I strained my influence with him, I can tell you," she retorted, with a smile of some occult meaning. "He is the prince of good fellows, and the staunchest of friends, and I congratulate you on having such influence to strain." "Oh, men are not difficult to manage, if properly handled." "Some of us, that is; but I hope he has been duly attentive in my absence," I said, casually, and with a glance. "What was the poor man to do? He couldn’t very well leave us in the lurch, I suppose? You were away, and we’d positively no one else." "To say nothing of his own inclinations," I added. "To say nothing of his own inclinations," she repeated. "Mercy is not exactly the kind of girl to scare a man away from her, I should hope." "A supposition that might be extended to include——" "What do you mean?" she asked quickly, as I stopped. "Whom should I mean but"—looking at her pointedly—"Madame Chansette, shall I say?" She laughed. "Yes, we’ll say Madame Chansette." "And yet—well, it doesn’t much matter whom we say; but at any rate he’s a thoroughly genuine fellow, and—you can fill in the rest. But, by the way, where is Mercy?" "She is having a French or Spanish lesson, I think; I’ll tell you all about it when you’ve finished your breakfast, and not a minute before. But about Mr. Mayhew, tell me, what is he at the Embassy here? He seems to speak as though he was a kind of mill-horse. Are there no prospects for him? Has he no influence to push him on?" "Yes, he has one, I think I may say two friends now who will see to that. I’m one of the two—and I think I’m speaking to the other," I said, quietly. "And between us we ought to do something. But he’s as proud as Lucifer, and a mere hint that we were at the back of anything of the kind would make him kick." "If poor A.B.C. were alive——" "Then, my dear Mrs. Curwen, you would never have been in Madrid, and would never have known Mayhew." She shrugged her shapely shoulders, smiled, and then said with unusual earnestness: "And will you really let me help you in trying to get him a step or two up the ladder?" "I mean to have him in London, and to make the people at home understand that he has a head on his shoulders fit for better things. Why, if Silas only had money to back his brains, there’s nothing he might not do or be. But there, I’ve finished my breakfast!" I exclaimed, getting up from the table, thinking I had said enough. "And now, where is Mercy?"