“About what?”

“Oh, about being delighted to make her acquaintance, and that kind of thing.”

“I have no doubt you will be as pleased to make her acquaintance as she will be to make yours,” said he, “and a few civil words never do any harm.”

Here Miss Burgoyne was called.  She went to the little side-table and sipped some of her home-brewed lemonade; then he opened the door for her, and together they went up into the wings.

“Tall, is she?” continued Miss Burgoyne, as they were looking on at Mr. Fred Collier’s buffooneries out there on the stage.  “Is she as silent and stupid as her brother?”

“Her brother?”

“Lord Rockminster.”

“Oh, Lord Rockminster isn’t her brother.  You’ve got them mixed up,” said Lionel.  “Miss Cunyngham’s brother, Sir Hugh, married a sister of Lord Rockminster—­the Lady Adela Cunyngham who came to your room one night—­don’t you remember?”

“You seem to have the whole peerage and baronetage at your fingers’ ends,” said she, sullenly; and the next moment she was on the stage, smiling and gracious, and receiving her father’s guests with that charming manner which the heroine of the operetta could assume when she chose.

Even with Miss Burgoyne’s grudgingly promised assistance, Lionel still remained unaccountably perturbed about that visit of Lady Cunyngham and her daughter; and when on the Saturday evening he first became aware—­through the confused glare of the footlights—­that the two ladies had come into the box he had secured for them, it seemed to him as though he were responsible for every single feature of the performance.  As for himself, he was at his best, and he knew it; he sang, ’The starry night brings me no rest’ with such a verve that the enthusiasm of the audience was unbounded; even Miss Burgoyne—­Miss Grace Mainwaring, that is, who was perched up on a bit of scaffolding in order to throw a rose to her lover—­listened with a new interest, instead of being busy with her ribbons and the set of her hair; and when she opened the casement in answer to his impassioned appeal, she kissed the crimson-cotton blossom thrice ere she dropped it to her enraptured swain below.  This was all very well; but when the comic man took possession of the stage, Lionel—­instead of going off to his dressing-room to glance at an evening paper or have a chat with some acquaintance—­remained in the wings, looking on with an indescribable loathing.  This hideous farcicality seemed more vulgar than ever? what would Honnor Cunyngham think of his associates?  He felt as if he were an accomplice in foisting this wretched music-hall stuff on the public.  And the mother—­the tall lady with the proud, fine features and the grave and placid voice—­what would she think of the new acquaintance whom her daughter had introduced to her?  Had it been Lady Adela or her sisters, he would not have cared one jot.  They were proud to be in alliance with professional