She pauses. Lauraine feels the colour mounting to her brow. There is something so irritating in this patronage and she knows that Lady Jean is about the last person who ought to talk of a _mésalliance_. "I thought you said just now that she would never be that," she says very coldly. "Your words and opinions seem somewhat inconsistent." "I shall be very much surprised if she ever is," responds Lady Jean. "All the same, one ought to prepare for the worst." Good-humoured as is her speech, light as is her laughter, Lauraine feels that there is a covert meaning in both. She would have known she was right could she have heard the conversation between Sir Francis and herself later on that evening. After the fatigue of the drive to Iffezheim and the excitement of the races the whole party profess to be too tired for anything but a quiet evening of "loo," mingled with music and gossip and cigarettes. Then Sir Francis saunters over to where Lady Jean sits--her dark, picturesque beauty looking its best in the mellow lamp-light. "What did you mean to-night by your remarks about young Athelstone?" he asks abruptly. Lady Jean gives him one quick glance of her flashing eyes. "Mean? nothing, of course. What _should_ I mean?" "That's just what I want to know. You don't think he cares for this girl?" "Not the value of a brass farthing!" "But you think----!" "My dear old donkey, I _think_--of course I think. I keep my eyes open, which you don't. I know a little sum in arithmetic called two and two, which you, I dare say, have long forgotten. That is all." "I wish I knew what you were driving at," mutters Sir Francis sulkily. "What should I be 'driving at'?" asks Lady Jean innocently. "Only when a young man has been entirely devoted to one woman, and then without rhyme or reason suddenly proposes to another for whom he doesn't care a straw, then--well, the little sum in arithmetic comes in useful. That is all." Sir Francis looks at her half in anger, half in perplexity. "That's the devil of women," he says with impatience. "They hint and hint, and won't speak out." "And that's the--ahem--of men," laughs Lady Jean. "They see, and see, and remain so blind." "I have seen nothing." "So much the better for you," says Lady Jean, with a shrug of her handsome shoulders. "You might have been annoyed, or uncomfortable; most likely the latter. You have not my secret of taking things lightly. Now, if I saw you making love under my very eyes I should only be amused, or think what bad taste you had to prefer any other woman to me. _On se console toujours, mon ami_. You do it one way, Lauraine another, I another. But I suppose we each have our own views on the subject of the consolation, or--consoler!"