The sound waves set in motion by Mrs. O'Reilly's words were tumultuously heaving in the atmosphere when I sprang into being, a young but perfectly formed and most promising slander. A delicious odour of tea pervaded the drawing-room, it was orange-flower pekoe, and Mrs. O'Reilly was just handing one of the delicate Crown Derby cups to her visitor, Miss Lena Houghton. "What a shocking thing! Do you really mean it?" exclaimed Miss Houghton. "Thank you, cream but no sugar; don't you know, Mrs. O'Reilly, that it is only Low-Church people who take sugar nowadays? But, really, now, about Mr. Zaluski? How did you find it out?" "My dear, I am an old woman, and I have learnt in the course of a wandering life to put two and two together," said Mrs. O'Reilly. She had somehow managed to ignore middle age, and had passed from her position of renowned beauty to the position which she now firmly and constantly claimed of many years and much experience. "Of course," she continued, "like every one else, I was glad enough to be friendly and pleasant to Sigismund Zaluski, and as to his being a Pole, why, I think it rather pleased me than otherwise. You see, my dear, I have knocked about the world and mixed with all kinds of people. Still, one must draw the line somewhere, and I confess it gave me a very painful shock to find that he had such violent antipathies to law and order. When he took Ivy Cottage for the summer I made the General call at once, and before long we had become very intimate with him; but, my dear, he's not what I thought him--not at all!" "Well now, I am delighted to hear you say that," said Lena Houghton, with some excitement in her manner, "for it exactly fits in with what I always felt about him. From the first I disliked that man, and the way he goes on with Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If they are not engaged they ought to be--that's all I can say." "Engaged, my dear! I trust not," said Mrs. O'Reilly. "I had always hoped for something very different for dear Gertrude. Quite between ourselves, you know, my nephew John Carew is over head and ears in love with her, and they would make a very good pair; don't you think so?" "Well, you see, I like Gertrude to a certain extent," replied Lena Houghton. "But I never raved about her as so many people do. Still, I hope she will not be entrapped into marrying Mr. Zaluski; she deserves a better fate than that." "I quite agree with you," said Mrs. O'Reilly, with a troubled look. "And the worst of it is, poor Gertrude is a girl who might very likely take up foolish revolutionary notions; she needs a strong wise husband to keep her in order and form her opinions. But is it really true that he flirts with her? This is the first I have heard of it. I can't think how it has escaped my notice."