“A Courtenay can do anything,” was their rather ambiguous motto, which suggested that it might have been started in self-defence, if not as a boast; and it (the name, not the motto) had been thoughtfully sandwiched in between my Lys and my d’Angely by my sponsors in baptism, that if necessary I might ever have an excuse at hand for any dark deed or infra dig-ness.

I used often to murmur the consoling mottoes to myself when pattering through muddy streets, too poor to take an omnibus, on the way to sell—­or try to sell—­my translations or my menus.  But now, after all that’s happened, if it is to strike conviction to my soul, I shall be obliged to yell it at the top of my mental lungs.

(That expression may sound ridiculous, but it isn’t.  We could not talk to ourselves as we do, in all kinds of voices, high or low, if we hadn’t mental lungs, or at the least, sub-conscious-self lungs.)

Je suis the daughter of the last Sire d’Angely; and a Courtenay can do anything; so of course it’s all right; and it’s no good my ancestors turning in their graves, for they’ll only make themselves uncomfortable without changing my mind.

I, Lys d’Angely, am going to be a lady’s-maid; or rather, I am going to be the maid of an extremely rich person who calls herself a lidy.

It’s perfectly awful, or awfully comic, according to the point of view, and I swing from one to the other, pushed by my fastidiousness to my sense of humour, and back again, in a way to make me giddy.  But it’s settled.  I’m going to do it.  I had almost to drag the suggestion out of Lady Kilmarny, who turned red and stammered as if I were the great lady, she the poor young girl in want of a situation.

There was, said she, a quaint creature in the hotel (one met these things abroad, and was obliged to be more or less civil to them) who resembled Monsieur Charretier in that she was disgustingly rich.  It was not Corn Plasters.  It was Liver Pills, the very same liver pills which had dropped into the mind of Lady Kilmarny when I hesitated to put into words the foundation of my pretendant’s future.  It was the Liver Pills which had eventually introduced into her brain the idea she falteringly embodied for me.

The husband of the quaint creature had invented the pills, even as Monsieur Charretier had invented his abomination.  Because of the pills he had been made a Knight; at least, Lady Kilmarny didn’t know any other reason.  He was Sir Samuel Turnour (evolved from Turner), just married for the second time to a widow in whose head it was like the continual frothing of new wine to be “her ladyship.”