“Who was it said t’other night—‘The day that saw Bolton content with a good woman I’d mark with a white stone in my calendar’? I think ’twas you!” “True. I said it. I meant it. But what part shall I play?” The Duchess looked at her composedly. “If she should do this, your Ladyship, would you still be her friend,— Would you treat her as his true wife, defend her name, honour her?” “Would you?” “Very certainly. But from me she has stolen no Bas.” Lady Fanny laughed sadly. “How well you know me! You play me like a puppet. Yes—because she has robbed me, I’m to act the noble part, am I?” “She did it not willingly.” “True. Well—you pull the string that makes me dance. You mean—why should I revenge on the girl what she could not help? You ask something of a man’s greatness of soul from me when I would hug my own little petticoated rancours. But I’ll respond. Yes, I’ll help you to make her the fashion and know herself not despised.” “She cares not for the fashion. She cares for the friendship of women she can honour.” “And she would honour me?” “She does.” “O Kitty, you wheedler! You roll the bolus in honey. But I’ll swallow it from your hand and Bolton’s. As I said t’other night when I little suspected what ’twould cost me—I’ll follow where you lead. You may use me as you will with Bolton. After all—the Queen receives Mrs. Oldfield on the sly.” “My Lady Fanny is more than the loose-tongued Queen and she will receive Mrs. Fenton openly,” says the Duchess gravely. “She will!” cries Lady Fanny— “O Kitty, tell me to dance on the tight-rope at the Fair, to grin through a horse-collar, to do anything in the wide world you bid me—and if your Grace does it, I’ll do it unflinching also. Let us court ridicule and worse in common!” They kissed one another on it—the Duchess very tenderly. She knew the sore sting at her friend’s heart, for if not love in the highest, still, love is pain and hurt pride a bitter salve for it. She knew also the fine high-bred generosity that rings responsive when the steel of a high call is struck upon it, and in all London there would be no aid like Lady Fanny’s and her own for the poor lovers she would help. “We will make them happy,” says she, “Bolton is singularly helpless where women are in hand;—Diana but a trembling girl as yet, but will be a fine woman. Come hither and see her soon, and be her judge—and her angel.” They parted on this, my Lady Fanny carrying her hurt under a gay cover, as many of her ancestors had done a thrust through flesh and blood. Well—shall a woman fail in courage that heeds it a thousandfold more than any man—she that must oppose a tender unarmed bosom to the thrust? She knew not her own heart yet—’twas so sudden a downfall. “When I see him I shall know. But he’ll avoid me. He has not even pity— “I have asked grace at a graceless face And there was none for my men and me.”