‘No!’ cried ‘La Marina,’ known in polite society as ‘Miss de Gascon,’ and to her father in Eastcheap as ‘my gal, Jewlia Muggins.’ ‘No! You don’t mean to say you’re the famous Delicia Vaughan? Why, I’ve read all your books, and cried over them, I can tell you! Well now, to think of it!’ And her hard, brilliant face was momentarily softened in sudden interest. ‘Why, all these swagger people are asked to meet _you_ here to-night, and I’m the paid _artiste_. I’m to have forty guineas to dance twice before the assembled company! Tra-la-la!’ and she executed a sudden lively pirouette. ‘I am pleased! I’d rather dance before you than the Queen!’ In an almost helpless state of amazement, Delicia sat down for a moment and gazed at her. The servant had left the room, and ‘La Marina,’ glancing cautiously about her, approached on tip-toe, moving with all the silent grace of a beautiful Persian cat. ‘I say,’ she said confidentially, ‘you are sweetly pretty! But I suppose you know that; and you’re awfully clever, and I suppose you know that too! But why ever did you go and marry such a cad as “Beauty” Carlyon?’ Springing to her feet, Delicia fronted her, her eyes flashing indignation, her breath coming and going, her lips parted to speak, when swift as thought ‘La Marina’ tapped her fingers lightly against her mouth. ‘Don’t defend him, you dear thing!’ she said frankly. ‘He isn’t worth it! He thinks he’s made a great impression on me, but, lor’! I wouldn’t have him as a butler! My heart is as sound as a bell,’ and she slapped herself emphatically on the chest, as though in proof of it. ‘When I take a lover—a real one, you know,—no sham!—I’ll pick out a good, honest, worthy chap from the working classes. I don’t care about your “blue blood” coming down from the Conquest, with all the evils of the Conquest fellows in it; it seems to me the older the blood the worse the man!’ Delicia grew desperate. It was no time to play civilities off one against the other; it was a case of woman to woman. ‘You know I cannot answer you!’ she said hotly. ‘You know I cannot speak to you of my husband or myself. Oh, how _dare_ you insult me!’ ‘La Marina’ looked at her amazedly with great, wide-open, unabashed black eyes. ‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed, ‘here’s a row! Insult you? I wouldn’t insult you for the world; I like your books too much; and now, having seen you, I like _you_. I suppose you’ve heard your husband runs after me; but, lor’! you shouldn’t let that put you out. They all do it—married men most of all. I can’t help it! There’s the Duke of Stand-Off—he’s after me day and night; he’s got three children, and his wife’s considered a leading beauty. Then there’s Lord Pretty-Winks; he went and sold an old picture that’s been in his family hundreds of years, and bought me a lot of fal-lals with the proceeds. I didn’t want them, and I told him so; but it’s all no use—they’re noodles, every one of them.’