"Yes, Miss Daphne, if you would come out to New York you'd have a real good time. You'd turn all the young fellow's heads. I'm afraid you'd do a terrible amount of damage there. I should like to show you and Mrs. Wyburn Newport in the season, too. You ladies have it all your own way over the other side of----may I say, the herringpond?" "Oh, please do; yes, _do_ say the herringpond!" Daphne leant forward and said to Harry: "Do you know who is that very distinguished-looking man who has just come in--rather weary and a little grey on the temples? He bowed and kissed the woman's hand so charmingly--at the next table to us. Looks like a great diplomatist." "Then he must be a stockbroker," said Valentia decidedly. "Every one with the grand manner always is." "Really! I can't say; I don't know any stockbrokers," said Miss Luscombe. "How distinguished that sounds!" murmured Vaughan. "It's very clever of you, Miss Luscombe," said Lady Walmer; "I don't see how you can help it! I know nobody else. I always tell Alec she'll have to marry one, and when she says she doesn't want to, 'My dear child,' I say, 'you can't marry people you don't see!' And almost the only people she ever sees at our house _are_ stockbrokers--except a few soldiers who never have a penny." Alec was the daughter, named after her distinguished godmother. "It's quite gone out to be snobbish now," Lady Walmer continued in a lower voice to Harry. "We're all only too glad to take all we can get in exchange for anything we give!" "And you don't call that snobbish?" said Harry. "My dear, no!--of course, we give as little as possible. I talk like this and yet I married for love--and you know the result! Walmer's always gambling, always running after--goodness knows what--and leaves me--not quite in the gutter, but certainly on the kerb!" "Don't you want Alec to marry for love?" "I'm afraid she'll have to, my dear--she's not very attractive. It's a blessing she's an heiress. But if she's allowed to play hockey, and skate, and fence, and dance, and the husband is fairly kind to her, I'm sure she'll be happy--I mean, I have no idea of her marrying a duke, Harry. I shall be satisfied if he's a charming man, and not too selfish." She lowered her voice still more to add--"You know she likes you, poor child, don't you?" "You're making fun of me, dear Lady Walmer." "No, I'm not.... Walmer's taken 'Flying Fish' again, and after Cowes we're going for a long cruise. You must come with us. Her father will be all right. He lets me have my own way about her. Well, aren't you coming?" "You're too frightfully kind, Lady Walmer, of course. But----" "My dear boy, of course you're going to the Green Gate, but I wish you'd listen to a woman of the world. That," she gave Valentia a piercing glance, "can't go on for ever! You will find Romer making a row some day, and that will be a bore for you. He's just the sort of man who would."