"Miss Thurwell," she said good-naturedly, "I don't know when I shall forgive you for monopolizing Mr. Maddison in this shameful manner. Why, there were quite a crowd of people came this afternoon only to catch a glimpse of him, and there was nothing to be seen but his boots behind that screen. I am in terrible disgrace, I can assure you!" "The fault was mine," he interposed, "altogether mine. In an ungovernable fit of shyness, I took refuge with the only person except yourself, Lady Meltoun, whom I was fortunate enough to know. I simply refused to come away." "Well, I suppose I must forgive you, or you won't come again," Lady Meltoun said. "But now you are here, you must really stop and see Edgar. When every one has gone we will go up to the nursery, and in the meantime you may make yourself useful by taking Lady Thurwell out to her carriage. I'm afraid there's rather a crush." So they all three went out together, and while they stood waiting for Lady Thurwell's victoria, he managed to say a word to her alone. "I will come and see you," he whispered. She looked up at him a little shyly, for in handing her into the carriage he had assumed a certain air of proprietorship which had brought a faint color into her cheeks. "Come soon," she whispered. "Good-bye!" She nodded brightly, and Lady Thurwell smiled as the horses started forward, and the carriage drove away. "I wonder who Mr. Maddison really is?" she said, half to herself, just as they reached home. Lady Thurwell shrugged her shoulders. "Do you mean who his family are?" she asked. "My dear, it isn't of the slightest consequence. Bernard Maddison is Bernard Maddison, and his position would be just what it is, even though his father were a coal heaver." Which remark showed that Lady Thurwell, as well as being a woman of society, was also a woman of sense. But Helen was not thinking of his family. CHAPTER XVIII A CHEQUE FOR L1,000 It was ten o'clock in the morning, and the usual routine of business had commenced in the office of Messrs. Levy & Son. Mr. Levy, senior, was sitting at his desk opening his letters, and Mr. Benjamin, who had only just returned from a long journey on business of the firm, and did not feel inclined for office work, was leaning back in the client's chair, with his feet up against the mantelpiece, and a partly smoked cigar in his mouth. He had just finished a long account of his adventures, and was by no means inclined to quit the subject. "Altogether, dad," he was saying, "it's about the prettiest piece of business we ever struck. But one thing is very certain. We must get some more tin from Miss Thurwell. Why, I've been at it five months now, and the expenses at some of those foreign hotels were positively awful. Not knowing the confounded lingo, you see, I was forced to stump up, without trying the knocking-off game."