FIVE miles from Saltire Hall stood Gabingly Castle, a modern “mediæval” structure, devoted to the fortunes of Lord Gerald Gusset, a Georgian peer. The Gussets of Gabingly were the social autocrats of the neighborhood, dispensing fame from their crested card-cases. It had been a great day for John Strong of Saltire when the Honorable Misses Gusset had partaken of tea in the “red drawing-room” of the hall. Mincing Lane and the City had faded into an irreferable past. At Saltire that night the panelled dining-room was lit by lamps hung with crimson lace. The table was scintillant with silver, decorated with luxurious flowers and broad-leafed palms. Dinner-tables often resemble a suburban street where every person prays to be preserved from his neighbor. And Gabriel Strong was in no mood for word-fencing that evening. Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he surveyed his partner with a melancholy reserve that was eminently Byronic. “Sherry, please,” said the Honorable Miss Gusset, crumbling bread with her plump pink fingers and casting an amused smile at the reticent being at her elbow. “I had always heard, Mr. Strong, that you were such a garrulous and enlightened person!” Gabriel looked into the woman’s brown eyes. “Apparently my reputation has been assailed,” he said; “consider me a dullard; I deserve the taunt.” Miss Blanche Gusset reprimanded him with playful scorn. “Young man,” she said, “have you reflected that it is rude to seem bored over the soup? I must ask you to consider my reputation.” The rebuked one smiled. “Who could imperil the treasure?” he asked. “You forget, sir, that Mrs. Marjoy, with her quince-jelly eyes and her peony complexion, considers herself the one fascinating woman in Saltire. When I tell you that she has been squinting at us venomously through her spectacles you should be able to foresee the future.” “Need you dread the lady?” “My dear Gabriel, Mrs. Marjoy will relate to all her friends how bored you were by me at your father’s dinner-table. Remember that I am still in the marriage market and must defend myself against the calumnies of my fellow-shes.” “Hence my responsibility.” “To aid me in maintaining an eligible exterior.” Blanche Gusset, Gabriel’s neighbor, was a pert, plump, and slangy young person, very rubicund and very pushful. Her vitality was phenomenal, her vigor Amazonian. She feared neither sun nor freckles, frumps nor fashions. Moreover, she was the one woman in the neighborhood who could attack and rout the redoubtable Mrs. Marjoy, that most Christian Medusa, who attended the eucharist fasting and concocted malignities an hour later over the breakfast-table.