Then, in a flash, she was herself again, back to the wall, fighting desperately for her position, which was equivalent to her life. She would show everybody if she was done with yet. A gray hair or two! What did that matter, when a woman like Lady Ardingly had no hairs at all, gray or any other colour, and all the world knew it? She had money--any amount of it--which was of more consequence than anything else; she had, what was almost better than wit, a quick and incisive tongue--an instrument, it is true, not to be used except on such occasions as when a man may draw his revolver, to defend himself at close quarters, but as valuable, when people knew you had it, as the revolver. She was selfish, ambitious, greedy of worse things than food, unscrupulous, ready to amuse, and easy to be amused. She had everything, in fact, which was needful to make up the kind of success which she desired, and which, in point of fact, she had hitherto enjoyed. Yet she had industriously and carefully been making a private little hell for herself during this last hour simply because Marie went driving with her husband, and the King happened not to see her! Like all wise people, though she would not admit it to any one else, she frankly admitted to herself that she had made a mistake--such a little one, too--when she had allowed Silly Billy to talk about Marie and Jim Spencer, and this mistake, she was aware, had ramified further than she had anticipated. She ought never to have started it. She had not got enough beam, so to speak, to sail against Marie. Yet what a tempting prospect, if only she could have won! Marie really besmirched! How unspeakably convenient! But apparently this was not to be. She confessed that she had failed, and was genuinely sorry she had attempted it. Things had been very happy and comfortable before, and she ought to have been content. She felt, indeed, rather like a person who cannot swim, who has capsized near the bank, but in the first moment of immersion does not know whether he is within his depth or not. In any case, a few floundering plunges towards land would settle the matter, and she would be safe again--not, indeed, on the other bank, which had looked so inviting, but where she was before, and very enjoyable it had been! As a matter of fact, one of Mildred's depressed conjectures had been quite correct, and had she known what was being said a mile or so behind her, she would not have found it so easy, perhaps, to brace herself up to make her efforts. "Busily employed," said Arthur Naseby shrilly, "in taking the plug out of the bottom of her own boat. She exhibits a marvellous dexterity in doing it. What is the use of trying to start a scandal which nobody will believe? It was so stale, too. You and I certainly had done our level best to believe it long before, Lady Devereux. That Sunday down at Windsor--don't you remember?" "Yes, I tried for a week, with both hands and my eyes shut," said Blanche.