"I--I think so." The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation. "Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter the room beyond. "Yes. It is Lucy's birthday." "Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?" "Just twenty-one." And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to follow. "She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he entered. "Now, why----" "Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley, with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her." Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his somewhat severely featured countenance. "Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the matrimonial market!" Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn. "Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do something for herself in finding a good husband." Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:-- "Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall I see you again before you leave town?" "Probably. If not, you will hear from me."