"I wonder if it would to mine?" I remarked impersonally, addressing the ancient tapestry on an opposite wall. "Let's try, and see," persisted Molly. "Calculating Cats! There, it's out. I wouldn't have eaten their old dinner, except to please you. I've known them only thirteen days, but I could have said the same thing when I'd known them thirteen minutes. Indeed, I'm not sure I didn't say it to Jack. Did I, or did I not. Lightning Conductor?" "You did," replied the person addressed, answering with a smile to the name which he had earned in playing the part of Molly Randolph's chauffeur, in the making of their love story. "Women always know things about each other--the sort of things the others don't want them to know," Molly went on; "but there's no use in our warning men who think they are in love with Calculating Cats, because they would be certain we were jealous. Of course I shouldn't say this to you, Lord Lane, if you hadn't taken me into your confidence a little--that night of my first London ball." "It was the night I proposed to Nell," I said, half to myself. "Sir Horace Jerveyson was at the ball, too." "Talking to Lady Blantock." "And looking at Miss Blantock. I noticed, and--I put things together." "Who would ever have thought of putting those two together?" "I did. I said to myself and afterwards to Jack--may I tell you what I said?" "Please do. If it hurts, it will be a counter-irritant." "Well, Jack had told me such heaps about you, you know, and he'd hinted that, while we were having our great romance on a motor car, you were having one on toboggans and skates at Davos, so I was interested. Then I saw her at the ball, and we were introduced. She was pretty, but--a prize white Persian kitten is pretty; also it has little claws. She liked you, of course, because you're young and good-looking. Besides, her father was knighted only because he discovered a new microbe or something, while you're a 'hearl,' as my new maid says." "A penniless 'hearl,'" I laughed. "You must have plenty of pennies, for you seem to have everything a man can want; but that is different from what a woman can want. I'm sure Helen Blantock and her mother had an understanding. I can hear Lady Blantock saying, 'Nell, dear, you may give Lord Lane encouragement up to a certain point, for it would be nice to be a countess; but don't let him propose yet. Who knows what may happen?' Then what did happen was Sir Horace Jerveyson, who has more pounds than you have pennies. Helen would console herself with the thought that the wife of a knight is as much 'Lady So-and-So' as a countess. I hate that grocerman, and as for Helen, you ought to thank heaven fasting for your escape." "Perhaps I shall some day, but that day is not yet," I answered. "However, there is still Monte Carlo." "Shall you drown your sorrows in roulette?" asked Molly, looking horrified. "Who knows?"