"I am glad to hear that Billy can blush at all," murmured Lady Jim. "How's the betting, William?" "Tolerable! I pulled off a fiver on Fly-by-Night; but a man in my form lost a tenner, silly juggins." "Oh! How old is that man?" "Sixteen, and thinks he's twenty. Awfully saucy chap though. Went nap on a girl, and another fella' scooped th' pool." "Don't they teach English at Eton, Billy?" The youth was quite undisturbed. "Try to," he assured her; "but there's no snap about the classical rot they give us. Oh, here we are." "And there is Reggy," cried Lady Richardson, craning her dyed head out of the window like another Jezebel. "How d'y do, Captain Lake? Lovely day! So sorry we're late. You know Lady James Kaimes?" "I have that pleasure," said the tall young soldier, saluting. "Very sorry to hear your husband is ill, Lady James." "Thanks! But I daresay Jamaica will pull him round, Captain Lake." "Hope it won't," breathed Billy, at her elbow, as the lift soared. "Why, you horrid little boy?" "There'll be a chance for me." "No, no! You're too much of a general lover, Billy." "Girls do run a man so hard, nowadays," observed Billy, pathetically. "It was different in your youth, no doubt. But I am not a girl, and quite old enough to box the ears of conceited urchins." "Do!--if you'll let me give you a kiss for a blow." "What precocious Christianity! You had better apply to that pretty American girl near the Casino door." "Miss Mamie Mulrady? Oh, I can get her kisses without fightin'. Not bad-lookin', is she? Lots of tin, an' as spry as they make 'em. There's th' little mother an' that rotter chippin' into th' Casino. Shall we follow, Lady Jim?" They were stopped on the steps by Miss Mulrady, "who knew both, and claimed acquaintance through a wholly unnecessary lorgnette. She was a vivacious Wild West product, who exaggerated the vernacular, because Europeans expected to find the Californian girl of fiction in real life. Her exaggerated slang was assumed out of sheer amusement, and she greatly enjoyed the amazed looks of those who heard her talk good Anglo-Saxon, which she did, when she escaped from fools to forgather with wise men. "How are you, Miss Mulrady?" asked Billy solemnly. "Keepin' afloat, I guess, but that's about all. The dollars I've lost buckin' the tiger would have bought me a dozen husbands." "Foreign ones are cheap, I believe," said Leah, admiring the prairie-flower's Paris frock more than her republican manner. "You make me smile. I'm goin' to run tandem with Sir Billy here--me first and he the wheeler." "No go," said the boy, quite able to hold his own. "I'm not goin' to marry a Bret Harte girl." "Oh, do," replied Miss Mulrady, in the purest of English, and placing two small gloved hands together. "I'll be a wife and a mother in one." "What economy!" smiled Lady Jim. "Are you coming into the 'devil's parlour'?" "Later. I'm waiting for Mr. Askew."