They went down together. Lorimer got her a biscuit, an ice, and a glass of champagne, and this light refreshment reanimated her. On their way back to the drawing-room Lorimer took up the thread of the conversation again. "Come now, my dear Dora," said he, "your lot is very enviable after all, you know. You are young, beautiful, rich, adored--one of the queens of society. What more do you ask?" "I ask nothing more," replied Dora; "I ask a great deal less. A queen in society! I had rather be queen at home, as I used to be. We were left in peace in those times. Now all the idlers pry into our life. And why? Oh, it is too silly! Because Philip refused to sell Sir Benjamin Pond a picture which he was painting for me. Yes, that is what is occupying them to-night. They all go to have a look at the portrait, one after another, and then they laugh. Can you conceive such a thing? There exists, or rather there existed, a painter who loved his wife, and did not mind showing it! Is it not droll? So vulgar, you know! It appears that it creates high fun at the clubs. Ah, you may talk about women's tongues, but to retail rubbish and circulate scandal, you must get a dozen men together in a club smoking-room. They are beyond competition, my dear Gerald. I would give all my guests for a couple of intimate friends, for a couple of devoted relatives. Ah, you may say what you like, blood is thicker than afternoon tea." "You were too happy," said Lorimer, who had been amused at Dora's tirade; "now you must share your happiness a little." "Yes, and my husband with everybody. Where is my share? How I should like to leave this room and go and sit in a quiet corner for a good talk, such as we used to have in the good old times in the other house." "Why move? Stay where you are, and instead of thinking yourself on show, try and imagine that all this crowd is here for your amusement. I know all your guests personally or by sight. I am your 'Who's who' for to-night. Make use of me. I will show and explain the magic lantern." "So you shall," said Dora, amused by the suggestion. "Now, then, who is that horrible creature painted and dyed, with eyes half out of her head and an eternal sickly smile on her face?" "Lady Agatha Ashby, an old grump of the fashionable world. No one knows her age. Some say it is seventy-two, others put it at a hundred and seventy-two. She is enamelled, and the mouth, as you see it, is fixed in that way with a smile that lasts three hours. They say she used to be pretty and rather witty. Makes it her duty to know everybody worth knowing. Will probably leave memoirs behind her--a diary at anyrate." "And those?" said Dora, indicating two couples passing near her. "The Earl of Gampton. Behind him the Countess, a young American woman, who brought him three million dollars, with which he has been able to get his coat-of-arms out of pawn. Our British aristocracy gets regilded in Chicago and New York."