For in those days certain great houses and political ladies, though not at the zenith of their power, were still, in their comparative decline, very much to be reckoned with. When Lady Parham talked longer than usual with the French Ambassador, his Austrian and German colleagues wrote anxious despatches to their governments; when a special mission to the East of great importance had to be arranged, nobody imagined that Lord Parham had very much to do with the appointment of the commissioner, who happened to have just engaged himself to Lady Parham's second girl. No young member on the government side, if he wanted office, neglected Lady Parham's invitations, and admission to her more intimate dinners was still almost as much coveted as similar favors had been a generation before in the case of Lady Jersey, or still earlier, in that of Lady Holland. She was a small old woman, with a shrewish face, a waxen complexion, and a brown wig. In spite of short sight, she saw things that escaped most other people; her tongue was rarely at a loss; she was, on the whole, a good friend, though never an unreflecting one; and what she forgave might be safely reckoned as not worth resenting. Elizabeth Tranmore received Mary's remark with reluctant consent. Lady Parham--from the English aristocratic stand-point--was not well-born. She had been the daughter of a fashionable music-master, whose blood was certainly not Christian. And there were many people beside Lady Tranmore who resented her domination. "It will be so perfectly easy when the moment comes to invent some excuse or other for shelving William's claims," sighed Ashe's mother. "Nobody is indispensable, and if that old woman is provoked, she will be capable of any mischief." "What do you want for William?" said Mary, smiling. "He ought, of course, to have the Home Office!" replied Lady Tranmore, with fire. Mary vowed that he would certainly have it. "Kitty is so clever, she will understand how important discretion is, before things go too far." Lady Tranmore made no answer. She gazed into the fire, and Miss Lyster thought her depressed. "Has William ever interfered?" she asked, cautiously. Lady Tranmore hesitated. "Not that I know of," she said, at last. "Nor will he ever--in the sense in which any ordinary husband would interfere." "I know! It is as though he had a kind of superstition about it. Isn't there a fairy story, in which an elf marries a mortal on condition that if he ever ill-treats her, her people will fetch her back to fairyland? One day the husband lost his temper and spoke crossly; instantly there was a crash of thunder and the elf-wife vanished." "I don't remember the story. But it's like that--exactly. He said to me once that he would never have asked her to marry him if he had not been able to make up his mind to let her have her own way--never to coerce her."