“Really they say there is a Providence above us, but I can’t think there is, when I am pestered to death by bills, and this creature owns Harrenden House;” she thought, with those doubts as to the existence of a deity which always assail people when deity is, as it were, in the betting against them. She had read an article that morning by Jules Simon, in which he argued that if the anarchists could be only persuaded to believe in a future life they would turn their bombs into bottles of kid reviver and cheerfully black the boots of the bourgeoisie. But she felt herself that there was something utterly wrong in a scheme of creation which could bestow Harrenden House on a Margaret Massarene, and in a Divine Judge who could look on at such discrepancies of property without disapproval. She scarcely said a syllable in her breathless progress over the building; although the unhappy mistress of Harrenden House pined in trembling for her verdict, as a poor captain of a company longs for a word from some great general inspecting his quarters. But when she had finished her tour of inspection, and consented to take a cup of tea and a caviare biscuit in the tea-room where the Leo the Tenth urn was purring, and Mr. Winter and two of his subordinates were looking on in benign condescension, she said brusquely: “_Eh bien, il ne vous a pas volé._” Mrs. Massarene had not the most remote idea of what she meant, but smiled vaguely, and anxiously, hoping the phrase meant praise. “He’s given you the value of your money,” Lady Kenilworth explained. “It’s the finest house in London, and nearly everything in it is good. The Mantegna is rubbish, as I told you, and if I had been asked I shouldn’t have put up that Pietro di Cortona. What did Khris make you pay for it?” “I don’t know, I am sure, ma’am,” replied the mistress of the Mantegna meekly. “William--Mr. Massarene--never tells me the figure of anything.” “The Cortona was painted last year in the Avenue de Villiers, I suspect,” continued Lady Kenilworth. “But all the rest, or nearly all, is admirable.” “It’s a very grand house,” replied its mistress meekly; “but it’s mighty lonesome-like to be in it, with no company. If all the great folks you promised, my lady----” “I never promised, I never do promise,” said her visitor sharply. “I can’t take people by their petticoats and coat-tails and drag them up your stairs. You must get yourself known for something; then they’ll come. What? Oh, I have no idea. Something. A cook; or a wine; or a surprise. People like surprises under their dinner napkins. Or a speciality, any speciality. I knew a person who entirely got into society by white hares; _civet de lièvre_, you know; but white, Siberian.” Mrs. Massarene gasped. She had a feeling then she was being talked to in Sanscrit or Welsh and expected to understand it. Why white hares should be better than brown hares she could not imagine. Nobody ate the fur.