Mr. Hardacre, seeing in the distance a man to whom he thought he could sell a horse, escaped from the domestic wrangle. Mother and daughter wandered through the crowd, greeted by friends, pausing here and there to exchange a few words, until they came to the door of the music-room, filled to overflowing, where an operatic singer held the assembly in well-bred silence. At the door the crush was ten deep. On the outskirts conversation hummed like an echo of the noise from the suite of rooms behind. There they were joined by Morland. Mrs. Hardacre told him of the duchess's graciousness. He grinned, taking the information with the air of a man to whom the favour of duchesses bestowed upon his betrothed is a tribute to his own excellence. He thought she would be pleased, he said. They must get the old girl to come to the wedding. Mrs. Hardacre was pained, but she granted young love indulgence for the profanity. If they only could, she assented, the success of the ceremony would be assured. Norma turned to Morland with a laugh. “We shall be married with a vengeance, if it's sanctified by the duchess. Do you think a parson is at all necessary?” He joined in her mirth. She drew him aside. “Well, what's the news?” He accounted, loverwise, for his day.. At last he said: “I looked in upon Jimmie Padgate this morning. I wanted him to go to Christie's and buy a picture or two for me--for us, I ought to say,” he added, with a little bow. “He knows more about 'em than I do. He's a happy beggar, you know,” he exclaimed, after a short pause. “What makes you say so?” “His perfect conviction that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. There he was sitting at lunch over the black scrag end of a boiled mutton bone and a rind of some astonishing-looking yellow cheese--absolutely happy. And he waved his hand towards it as if it had been a feast of Lucullus and asked me to share it.” “Did you?” asked Norma. “I had n't time,” said Morland. “I was fearfully busy to-day.” Norma did not reply. She looked over the heads of the crowd in front of her towards the music-room whence came the full notes of the singer. Then she said to him with a little shiver: “I am glad you are a rich man, Morland.” “So am I. Otherwise I should not have got you.” “That's true enough,” she said. “I pretend to scoff at all this, but I could n't live without it.” “It has its points,” he assented, turning and regarding the brilliant scene.