'I expect you do; lots of frocks, eh, and jewels, and so on?' 'You may as well do the thing as well as you can, mayn't you?' Chance finished his tumbler, threw away his cigarette, got up, and stood by her on the hearthrug. She did not shrink from his approach, but maintained her ground with a jaunty impudence. 'And then you have plenty of fun?' he asked. 'Oh, of sorts,' admitted Connie Fricker. 'Mamma's a bit down on me; she thinks I ought to be so awfully proper. I don't know why. I'm sure the swells aren't.' Connie forgot that there are parallels to the case of the Emperor being above grammar. 'Well, you needn't tell her everything, need you?' 'There's no harm done by telling her--I take care of that; it's when she finds out!' laughed Connie. 'You can take care of that too, can't you?' 'Well, I try,' she declared, flashing her eyes full on him. Beaufort Chance gave a laugh, bent swiftly, and kissed her. 'Take care you don't tell her that,' he said. 'Oh!' exclaimed Connie, darting away. She turned and looked squarely at him, flushed but smiling. 'Well, you've got----' she began. But the sentence never ended. She broke off with a wary, frightened 'Hush!' and a jerk of her hand towards the door. Mrs. Fricker came sailing in, ample and exceedingly cordial, full of apologies, hoping that 'little Connie' had not bored the visitor. Beaufort assured her to the contrary, little Connie telegraphing her understanding of the humour of the situation over her mother's shoulders, and laying a finger on her lips. Certainly Connie, whatever she had been about to accuse him of, showed no resentment now; she was quite ready to enter into a conspiracy of silence. In a different way, but hardly less effectually, Mrs. Fricker soothed Beaufort Chance's spirit. She too helped to restore him to a good conceit of himself; she too took the lower place; it was all very pleasant after the Bonfill interview and the hard terms that his colleagues and Liffey offered him. He responded liberally, half in a genuine if not exalted gratitude, half in the shrewd consciousness that a man cannot stand too well with the women of the family. 'And how's Mrs. Trevalla?' Evidently Trix occupied no small place in the thoughts of the household; evidently, also, Fricker had not thought it well to divulge the whole truth about her treachery. 'I haven't seen her lately,' he said again. 'They talk a lot about her and Lord Mervyn,' said Mrs. Fricker, not without a sharp glance at Beaufort. He betrayed nothing. 'Gossip, I daresay, but who knows? Mrs. Trevalla's an ambitious woman.' 'I see nothing in her,' said Connie scornfully. 'Happily all tastes don't agree, Miss Fricker.' Connie smiled in mysterious triumph.