"Oh, I know," exclaimed their host impatiently, although trying to conceal his annoyance, "a lot of rot has been talked! I'm quite well aware of what you fellows mean. But I assure you that I'm a confirmed bachelor--just as confirmed as you, colonel--and, hang it! if report speaks correctly, you're one of the worst of the woman-haters in the whole of the Albany." "I've never had any necessity to marry," laughed the old officer, his cheeks flushing with good humour. "I've piloted some ripping ball-skirts and tailor-made gowns through half the courts of Europe, but I'm still heart-whole." "A fine record," observed Harry Benthall with his mouth full. At that breakfast-table there was no ceremony, and words were certainly not minced. "Well, every one seems to be linking my name with Claudia Nevill's," Dudley remarked, after commencing his breakfast, "I really can't see why." "But I can," declared the colonel bluntly. "You're a fool--if you'll forgive me for saying so." "Why?" "A fool for giving a second thought to a woman of her stamp," he answered. "Good heavens! if you knew half the tales about her, you'd cut her dead. I wonder why the Meldrums invited her? Suppose they couldn't help it--or something." "What tales?" asked Dudley, glancing inquiringly from one man to the other. "No. I'm not going to besmirch any woman's character, my dear fellow," replied the elder man. "Only, take my advice and have nothing more to do with her--that's all. She's no good to you, or indeed to any honest man." "Some foul scandal about her, I suppose," cried Chisholm, his brow darkening for an instant. As a matter of fact, he knew the scandal quite well. It was the common talk in every club in town. But he intended to champion her, even though he had escaped from her net. "Why don't you tell me?" "It is unnecessary--utterly unnecessary," the colonel answered, making as if breakfast were more important than gossip. "A pretty woman, smart and popular as she is, always gets talked about, and her enemies are sure to invent some cruel story or other. Half the women in London are envious of Claudia Nevill, hence all these absurd and scandalous tales," Chisholm declared. "Ah!" laughed the colonel, "as I said, you're gone on her, like the others, Dudley. You are old friends, every one knows. It's a pity that she's so reckless." "In what manner has she been reckless?" "Well, if you had been down at Fernhurst and seen her with the young Grand-Duke, you wouldn't defend her actions as you are now doing--well, by Jove! you couldn't. I'm a man of the world, you know, but I must say that the flirtation was a regular blizzard." "And is every woman who glances prettily at a man from behind her fan, or chats to a fellow in a conservatory, to be condemned?" asked his host. "If so, then society has suddenly become intensely puritanical. Remember that the licence not allowed to an unmarried girl may justifiably be employed by a widow."