She had to wait for some time before his lordship, who was sound asleep at that hour, could be aroused and sufficiently interested in the caller to come down to the drawing-room, where there was a telephone extension. “Hullo?” he asked feebly. “Good morning and all that! Sorry I didn’t catch your name.” “It’s Miss Smith,” said Lizzy in a hushed voice, and she heard Selwyn gasp. “Really? Not really? I say, there’s been an awful bother here! Everything’s at sixes and sevens, and all that sort of thing. That beastly bounder, Chesney Praye--you remember the fellow--bird of prey, what?” (Even Lizzy could not laugh at that hour in the morning.) “Well, he’s in the library with her ladyship!” “Listen--Selwyn!” She had to summon all her courage to voice this familiarity. “Can you see me? You know where I live--you were coming to dinner to-night; but I want you to come before. There’s something I want to see you about, something--well, I can’t describe it.” “Certainly,” he interrupted. “I’ll come right along. I’m supposed to go to the South Kensington Museum to see some models, but---- All right, colonel, thank you very much for calling!” The tone was louder and more formal. Lizzy, not unused to such innocent acts of deception, guessed that a servant or his mother had come into the drawing-room. She went back to her lodging with a feeling of exaltation. Not only had she secured the aid of a member of the aristocracy, but she had also, with great daring, and exercising a woman’s privilege, addressed him by a name which, to say the least, was intimate. She confided to Mr. Mackenzie, with an air of nonchalance, that she was expecting Lord Moron to call upon her, and he was impressed to a gratifying extent. “I told him to drop in--I know him rather well.” Lizzy flicked a speck of dust from her skirt with a fine air. “Is that so?” he asked, looking at her in wonder. “Well now, I never thought that one of the Morons would ever do me the honour of entering my house! They’re a fine family, a handsome family. I remember the old earl: he frequently came to the theatre, though not, I fear, in the most presentable condition.” Miss Lizzy Smith was not interested in the old earl. She was, however, immensely absorbed in the new one; and when Lord Moron’s taxicab pulled up at the side-walk she was at the door to admit him. “I say, what an awfully jolly kitchen!” he said, looking round at a room of which even Lizzy was not particularly proud. “I wouldn’t have asked your lordship here----” she began. “I say, don’t give us any of that ‘lordship’ stuff,” he pleaded. “I’m Selwyn to my friends. That’s a wonderful frying-pan: did you make it?” Lizzy disclaimed responsibility. But he had his views, apparently, upon culinary apparatus, had invented an electric chafing-dish, and had plans for a coke oven. Until then she had not known that coke was ever cooked.