noting the monosyllabic replies she gave to Lord Roxmouth whenever that distinguished personage addressed her, he decided, with a foolish thrill at his heart, that the report of her intended marriage with this nobleman could not be true—­she could never look so coldly at anyone she loved!  And with this idea paramount in his brain he gave himself up to the humour of the hour—­and by and by heads were turned in his direction, and people whispered—­’Is that the parson of the parish?’—­and when the answer was given in the affirmative, wondering glances were exchanged, and someone at the other end of the table remarked sotto voce:—­’Much too brilliant a man for the country!’—­whereat Miss Arabella Ittlethwaite bridled up and said she ’hoped nobody thought that town offered the only samples of the human brain worth noticing,’ as she would, in that case, ‘beg to differ.’  Whereat there ensued a lively discussion, which ended, so far as the general experience went, in the decision that clever men were always born or discovered in the country, but that after a while they invariably went up to town, and there became famous.

Presently, the dinner drawing to an end, dessert, coffee and the smoking conveniences for both ladies and gentlemen were handed round,—­cigars for the gentlemen, cigarettes for both gentlemen and ladies.  All the women helped themselves to cigarettes, as a matter of course, with the exception of Miss Ittlethwaite,—­(who, as a ‘county’ lady of the old school, sat transfixed with horror at the bare idea of being expected to smoke)—­poor old Miss Fosby, and Maryllia.  And now occurred an incident, in itself trifling, but fraught with strange results to those immediately concerned.  Lady Beaulyon was just about to light her own cigarette when, in obedience to a sudden thought that flashed across her brain, she turned her lovely laughing face round towards Walden, and said: 

“As there’s a clergyman present, I’m sure we ought to ask his permission before we light up!  Don’t you think it very shocking for women to smoke, Mr. Walden?”

He looked straight at her—­his face paling a little with a sense of strongly suppressed feeling.

“I have always been under the impression that English ladies never smoke,”—­he said, quietly, with a very slight emphasis on the word ‘ladies.’  “The rest, of course, must do as they please!”

Had a bombshell suddenly exploded in the dining-room, the effect could hardly have been more stupefying than these words.  There was an awful pause.  The women, holding the unlit cigarettes delicately between their fingers, looked enquiringly at their hostess.  The men stared; Lord Roxmouth laughed.