“Walderhurst has been to me three times when I made sure that he would not escape without a new marchioness attached to him.  I should think he would take one to put an end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked upon the bough.  A man in his position, if he has character enough to choose, can prevent even his wife’s being a nuisance.  He can give her a good house, hang the family diamonds on her, supply a decent elderly woman as a sort of lady-in-waiting and turn her into the paddock to kick up her heels within the limits of decorum.  His own rooms can be sacred to him.  He has his clubs and his personal interests.  Husbands and wives annoy each other very little in these days.  Married life has become comparatively decent.”

“I should think his wife might be very happy,” commented Emily.  “He looks very kind.”

“I don’t know whether he is kind or not.  It has never been necessary for me to borrow money from him.”

Lady Maria was capable of saying odd things in her refined little drawling voice.

“He’s more respectable than most men of his age.  The diamonds are magnificent, and he not only has three superb places, but has money enough to keep them up.  Now, there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the present party.  Of course you can guess who they are, Emily?”

Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed.  She felt a little indelicate.

“Lady Agatha would be very suitable,” she said.  “And Mrs. Ralph is very clever, of course.  And Miss Brooke is really pretty.”

Lady Maria gave vent to her small chuckle.

“Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business.  She’ll corner Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates her.  These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one.  Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them.  Walderhurst won’t be ogled.  The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph.  She was very sharp this afternoon.  She began at once.”

“I—­I didn’t see her”—­wondering.

“Yes, you did; but you didn’t understand.  The tennis, and the laughing with young Heriot on the terrace!  She is going to be the piquant young woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour; the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes—­but not out of them.  The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way and not obviously.  Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man:  he’s not five-and-twenty.”

Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke’s plaint:  “Don’t be too indifferent, Cora.”  She did not want to recall it exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have preferred to think them disinterested.  But, after all, she reflected, how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis of Walderhurst represented prospects.  Chiefly, however, she was filled with admiration at Lady Maria’s cleverness.