"Ah, Madame!" Marie, her late maid, smiled at her. "Ah, Madame." Marie was enchanted. She had regretted so that Madame had been obliged to part with her. "I am with Milady Goold, Madame, and I see Madame has not been well; she is looking delicate, then." "It was Italy." Esmé was nervous before the Frenchwoman, whose brown eyes looked at her with a curious shrewdness. "Madame had much travelling with Milady Blakeney? I have been to Reggio, Madame; I have a cousin there." Esmé turned swiftly to her door to hide her white cheeks. She recovered in a moment. Even if Marie did write or go there, there was nothing to find out. "Yes--it's a dull place, Marie," she said. "And when you're out of a place come back to me. Watson cannot do hair, Marie." Marie went away smiling--a curious little smile. "There was something curious in all that," she said softly. "Something, but yes, strange--and one day I, Marie, will find it out." The races were to be on Tuesday. Saturday saw Coombe Regis with every room full. The Cabinet minister felt himself over-honoured in one of the huge state rooms, where the old carved bedstead had been left, and all the electric lights did not seem to dispel the shadows. "Kind of thing queens died in," said the minister as he took a long walk from his bed to the dressing-table. The Duchess occupied another vast chamber, made incongruously modern by a low bedstead representing a lily, and bought for a fabulous sum from France. "Absurd," said Her Grace, as she poked into the down pillows and lace-edged sheets arrayed among the inlaid petals. "Also it can't have proper springs." Her Grace of Dullshire was a large lady of philanthropic tendencies. She kept a herd of prize cows which she sold to her friends for large sums, and prize hens, and she knew a horse when she saw one, so had come for the races. She also liked bridge, when she won. The Duchess was a leader of society, one fully aware of the fact. Her deep voice had power to slide an ambitious clamberer back over the edge of the cliff which she had scaled with difficulty. To be asked to Dullengla Court, where one dined off beef soup, boiled cod, roast mutton, cabbage or turnips, and rice moulds, was to be marked as with an order. The Duke never visited, and the Marquis of Boredom, their son, had so far not been allowed to marry. He had, greatly against his will, been included in this house-party, it being an unfortunate fact that his taste was for attractive ladies on the stage. "I would allow you to marry Lady Sukey Ploddy," said his mother when they got to the door of Coombe Regis; "she will be here." The palm court was brilliant to-night. Shaded lights glowed through the artificial leaves, showing chiffons and satins, laces and silks, and the black-and-white dinner armour of mankind. Rare jewels flashed, faint scents made the air fragrant.