"Who expects anything serious from Ricky? He possesses good manners, and a sweet alacrity," said Chrysos Lacy, "and that's a rare combination." "He's clever enough to be wicked, anyway," said Mrs. Sprowl. "Don't tell me that every one of his sentimental affairs have been perfectly harmless." "Has he had many?" asked Strelsa before she meant to. "Thousands, child. There was Betty Clyde--whose husband must have been an idiot--and Cynthia Challis--she married Prince Sarnoff, you remember----" "The Sarnoffs are coming in February," observed Chrysos Lacy. "I wonder if the Prince has had a tub since he left," said Mrs. Sprowl. "How on earth Cynthia can endure that dried up yellow Tartar----" "Cynthia was in love with Ricky I think," said Susanne Lannis. "Most girls are when they come out, but their mothers won't let 'em marry him. Poor Ricky." "Poor Ricky," sighed Chrysos; "he is _so_ nice, and nobody is likely to marry him." "Why?" asked Strelsa. "Because he's--why he's just Ricky. He has no money, you know. Didn't you know it?" "No," said Strelsa. "That's the trouble--partly. Then there's no social advantage for any girl in this set marrying him. He'll have to take a lame duck or go out of his circle for a wife. And that means good-bye Ricky--unless he marries a lame duck." "Some unattractive person of uncertain age and a million," explained Mrs. Lannis as Strelsa turned to her, perplexed. "Ricky," said the lady with abundant teeth, "is a lightweight." "The lightness, I think, is in his heels," said Strelsa. "He's intelligent otherwise I fancy." "Yes, but not intellectual." "I think you are possibly mistaken." The profusely dentate lady looked sharply at Strelsa; Susanne Lannis laughed. "Are _you_ his champion, Strelsa? I thought you had met him last night for the first time." "Mrs. Leeds is probably going the way of all women when they first meet Dicky Quarren," observed Mrs. Sprowl with malicious satisfaction. "But you must hurry and get over it, child, before Sir Charles Mallison arrives." At which sally everybody laughed. Strelsa's colour was high, but she merely smiled, not only at the coupling of her name with Quarren's but at the hint of the British officer's arrival. Major Sir Charles Mallison had been over before, why, nobody knew, because he was one of the wealthiest bachelors in England. Now it was understood that he was coming again; and a great many well-meaning people saw that agreeable gentleman's fate in the new beauty, Strelsa Leeds; and did not hesitate to tell her so with the freedom of fashionable banter. "Yes," sighed Chrysos Lacy, sentimentally, "when you see Sir Charles you'll forget Ricky." "Doubtless," said Strelsa, still laughing. "But tell me, Mrs. Sprowl, why does everybody wish to marry me to somebody? I'm very happy." "It's our feminine sense of fitness and proportion that protests. In the eternal balance of things material you ought to be as wealthy as you are pretty."