Lady Garribardine walked to the window and pretended to be looking out at something. She wanted to hide all the expression which might come into her eyes. The simple words, "It was such a very great pleasure to be taken for a lady and a guest just for once," had deeply touched her. She seemed to realise what such a spirit as Katherine's must feel, always in a subordinate position of no particular status--And with what dignity she carried it off! "Child," she answered, without looking round, "no one who knows you would ever take you for anything else--the theory of blood being absolutely necessary for this, you have proved to be nonsense. The Duke is one of my oldest friends and a very fine gentleman. I am glad you had a chance of talking freely to him." After she had left the room, Katherine folded and unfolded a bit of paper, a very unusual agitation moving her. "Oh! I wish I could tell her outright, my dear lady!" she cried to herself. "I almost believe she would sympathise with me, but if I see that she would not, and that it would hurt and anger her, I will give up even this, my ambition." * * * * * Gerard Strobridge was not of this party; he had been obliged to go to his brother's, so Katherine would have no collaborator and would be forced to act alone. She did not dine downstairs, but was required in the drawing-room afterwards, and until ten o'clock she stayed alone in her sitting-room, wondering what the Duke had thought, and if it would have been wiser to have stayed for a minute after firing her bomb. Had she known it, nothing to chain his interest could have been better than her swift disappearance, for he was now thinking of her, and at the first opportunity between the soup and fish, he said to his hostess: "Seraphim, I met your secretary, it seems, the other night at Gerard's--a very intelligent girl. I had no idea at the time that she was in any dependent position--and was greatly surprised when she addressed me at the station to-day as 'Your Grace'! She is some misfortunate friend's daughter, I suppose. Anyone I knew?" Lady Garribardine's eyes beamed with a momentary twinkle which she suppressed--She thought of the auctioneer father and the butcher grandfather and then she said casually: "No--she came from an advertisement, but she is a splendid creature, with more sense in her little finger than most of us have in our entire bodies--What do you think of my grey locks, Mordryn?" The Duke assured her he found them bewitching; he saw that she did not mean to speak of her secretary. "They cause you to look ten years younger, dear friend. I could find it in my heart to make love to you once more--and be repulsed with unabated violence, I fear!"