Mindful that a premature engagement might lead to gossip, Montrose and his beloved acted with great discretion. They gave vent to their ardent feelings in private, and behaved prudently in public. Certainly the young man paid many visits to Mrs. Barrast's house, and was markedly attentive to her visitor. But it was natural that a bachelor should admire a pretty maid, so people merely remarked indulgently that evidently Montrose was falling in love with Miss Enistor. They little knew that the inevitable had already happened, and in a scandalously short space of time. Mrs. Barrast, with a shrewdness which did her credit, guessed that the couple understood one another better than they would admit; but even she did not guess how far matters had gone. She would have been annoyed had she really known the truth, not because of the private engagement, but for the simple reason that she had not been admitted into the confidence of the lovers. As it was, all she saw led her to believe that Montrose was conventionally approaching her guest with a view to marriage, and quite approved of his intentions. Therefore she welcomed him to the house, and made use of him and his money. It was only right, she thought, that he should pay for her kindness in forwarding his aims. And the payment took the form of Mrs. Barrast plundering Montrose on all and every occasion. Frederick supplied her with ample funds for her frivolity, but Mrs. Barrast always wanted more than she could reasonably obtain, and cleverly got what she desired from Douglas. As both lovers were in deep mourning for Lady Staunton, the aunt of one and the benefactress of the other, they did not take much part in the gaieties of the waning season. All the same, Mrs. Barrast made Montrose give her concert tickets and boxes at theatres, which she used freely for herself and her friends. And as on these occasions she usually left Alice to entertain the donor in the Hans Crescent house, the young man was quite willing to be lavish in this direction. Indeed, he was in others also, for he supplied the butterfly with flowers and scent and gloves and similar trifles, which every woman likes to have and which no woman likes to pay for. Alice did not object at the outset to this generosity, as it was necessary to keep Mrs. Barrast in a good temper; but in the end she protested against such wholesale robbery. "You will ruin Mr. Montrose if you take everything he gives you," she said to Amy, two weeks after that momentous agreement in Kensington Gardens. "Oh, nonsense!" replied Mrs. Barrast airily. "The man has got more money than he knows what to do with. It's a man's duty to be agreeable. But of course, dear, if you are jealous----" "I--jealous?" Mrs. Barrast shrugged her elegant shoulders. "Well, my dear, it looks like it, you know. You needn't be if you are, I'm sure, for I can't marry him, and I have no intention of running away with the dear thing."