So excited were both at the prospect of domestic privacy, so engrossed with their plans for expending Julia's Christmas present to best advantage, that two incidents which--at any other time--would have been of immense importance, passed almost unnoticed. The first of these incidents was Rear-Admiral Billy's written confession of failure, and the second--"the scandal of Powolney Mansions." For the rumor which had arisen none knew whence, the rumor that "Mrs. Cavendish wasn't really Mrs. Cavendish at all, but the wife of a well-known society man who refused to divorce her," at last blew so strongly that _Monsieur_ (who before the war would have called himself _Herr_) Mayer, proprietor of the Mansions, felt himself finally obliged to take notice of it. "Of course, I ask you no questions, Mr. Cavendish," said Monsieur Mayer, seated undistinguished at the dusty desk in his private office. "Of course I ask you and your wife no questions. Your private affairs are your private affairs. But in a boarding-house it is not always possible to keep one's private affairs private; and there has been talk, much talk. That Miss Greenwell, she who have No. 26, and pay less than any one in the house, she gossip all the time. She gossip about you and Mrs. Cavendish. For my part," he waved a deprecatory hand, "I know it is only gossip. I make no suggestion. To me, so long as you pay your bill at the end of the week, it is all right." To which Ronnie, in his most cautious legal manner, retorted: "If Miss Greenwell or any of your other guests wish to make imputations against myself or my wife, I shall be glad if they will make them to me personally"--and promptly gave a fortnight's notice. "Dash the fellow's impertinence." he laughed to Aliette, when he reported the interview. "There's no law in England to stop you from calling yourself Mrs. Cavendish." But Aliette, looking up from the wall-paper pattern-book she was studying, did not laugh; because intuitively she knew the power behind Miss Greenwell's throne. "Hector's doing," she thought. "Somehow or other he must have put the tale about." And in that moment, for the first time, she began to despise her legal owner. There was neither fear nor hate in her despising; only disdain and a crystallization of courage. That Hector should try to hurt her man financially seemed unsporting enough; but this latest secret effort to drive them shelterless into the streets of London put him, in her eyes, definitely beyond the pale. All the same, for the last fortnight of their stay, "Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish" more than ever eschewed the public apartments and "congenial society" of Powolney Mansions. 2