After she had written awhile, the great actress handed the maid a book and a letter: “Ernestine--this is like a play, isn’t it?” She smiled: “Burn that,” she said--“and post this.” Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre was released from his bondage quite easily. He was cast off. He read the letter, shrugged his shoulders, flung the scented notepaper into the fire. He had promised to read her letter to his admirers--when it came. He decided that he must invent one instead. Yet--this one--well---- It was simple enough--quite devoid of style: “Mr. Myre would do well to avoid Madame Olmé’s house in the future, as the footmen have orders to flog him down the stairs.” Mr. Myre smiled: “The French are so melodramatic!” he said. CHAPTER XXII _Wherein we are obliged to Spend a Brief Moment in the Company of the Titled Aristocracy_ Anthony Baddlesmere stood brooding in the middle of his room, his hands behind his back, and his wits hammering in his skull. “Tsh--sh!” He wondered how it was that he had not seen this tangle until now. The boy was gone; into his place had stepped a youth--Noll was on the verge of manhood. And the lad had the firm mouth and the strong jaw of the Baddlesmeres. It had all flashed upon him suddenly; thus: As he came up the steps to enter the house, the door had opened and there had stepped thereout a very beautiful girl of near sixteen, her skirts not quite as long as they might have been; and beside the girl had walked a handsome youth--his son Noll. Ought this thing to be? This girl’s father, Modeyne, was a gentleman--as a matter of fact of as good blood as himself, if they came to the arbitrament of the Heralds’ Office. But he was utterly unclassed! The fellow was become an Outsider. He was only to be seen in the city, and--pah! with such a rank gang of vulgarians! men whose loud clothes were always aggressively well-brushed, whose hats, worn rakishly to a side, were aggressively shiny, whose glittering boots were always aggressively new and suggestive of the aggressively expensive, whose aitches were the only articles of subtlety and rarity that they paraded, whose manners were overbearing and authoritative. God! Modeyne, even when drunk, shone, for all his falling away, the only man of breeding in the company. Still--he was the falling star. The girl had not a chance. So Anthony argued--with what is called the world’s wisdom--and proceeded to take the most elaborate precautions that she should not have a chance. Noll’s calf-love for the girl must be killed. By Venus! she was uncommon handsome--there was that excuse for the lad. But how? At any rate, there was no time to be lost. This boy Noll was come within two lives of the Cavil property--there was only one between his mother and the peerage. He thought it would be a mistake to say anything to Caroline about it. She might go into opposition.