The Countess took the cigarette from her mouth, blew a cloud of smoke, following it with her eyes until it dissipated, and then, slowly extinguishing the cigarette in the ash-tray, she made her revelation and Mr. Chesney Praye listened without interruption for half an hour. And all that he heard he sorted for his own advantage. She paused only once, and that was when she saw her son, piloting the girl into the palm court. “She’s prettier than I thought,” she said, “a chorus-girl’s prettiness, but----” “Never mind about her,” said Chesney impatiently. “What happened after----” The Countess told him, concealing nothing, and when she had finished, he sat back in his chair, hot and limp. “My God!” he breathed. “You--you are wonderful! And that’s the ‘why’ of Gallows Farm, eh? I confess I was puzzled.” “That is the why of Gallows Farm,” said Lady Moron, lighting another cigarette. Chesney Praye left the hotel alone; the Countess was going down to her place in the country, and, when she invited him to accompany her, he had invented an appointment on the spur of the moment, for Chesney was a quick thinker, and on the occasion of which Michael Dorn never grew weary of reminding him, he owed his immunity from arrest to this quality. He glanced up at the street-clock. There was time to carry out one essential part of his scheme and, if his plan was not entirely worked out when he picked up a taxi, it was complete in all details when he reached St. Paul’s Churchyard. From the top of a plebeian ’bus Lord Moron and his companion saw the cab flash past. “My stepfather!” groaned his lordship. “You wouldn’t think a horrible, common bounder like that would attract a woman like her ladyship, Elizabeth?” But Lizzy pressed her lips tightly together and expressed no opinion, other than the noncommittal one that “likes attract like,” which may or not have been as complimentary as she intended. There was no telegram for her in Charlotte Street when they arrived. “And there won’t be,” said Lord Moron with satisfaction. “I’ll bet you any amount of money that the purply doctor has got away with it. Mind you, Elizabeth, I know him! He’s had his skinny legs under my mahogany, and whatever you may say about me, I’m a judge of character.” “I think you’re clever,” admitted Lizzy, “and I’ve always said so. What is your mother going to say about us going to lunch at that posh restaurant?” Lord Moron expressed his complete indifference. “From to-day I am on my own; I can’t start too soon,” he said. “Her ladyship doesn’t mind being seen in public with that perfectly impossible Chesney Praye--the bird of prey, as I sometimes call him----” he waited for applause, but received no more than an approving smile,--“and if she doesn’t mind, I don’t see how she can object to me going to lunch with one of the--at any rate, a very nice girl,” he added lamely, and Elizabeth raised her eyes in the shy, wistful way she had seen in the best films.