Her ladyship, telegram in hand, has just knocked at Florence Ffolliott's door. Florence is a special favorite with the old lady: she approves thoroughly of her engagement, which was formally announced at Stokeham last year, and of the man of her choice, who at the present moment is lighting a cigar and cogitating in a somewhat ruffled frame of mind over the piece of news he has just been made acquainted with by his hostess.
"Florence, my dear," says her ladyship, "I am the most fortunate woman in the world. I have been longing for a new star in my domestic firmament, and, behold! it dawns. I expected to have her here some time, but not so early as this; and the charming creature sends me a telegram that she arrives by the eleven-o'clock express this morning: I have just sent to the station for her. I met Roy on my way to you, and conveyed the intelligence to him, but of course he only looked immensely bored: these absurd men! they never can take an interest in but one woman at a time." Lady Florence's quick color came naturally enough. "Now, my child, guess the name of the new luminary."
"I'm quite sure I can't," says the girl, her roses paling to their usual pink. "Tell me, dear Lady Dering: suspense is terrible;" and she laughs merrily.
"Hyacinthe King, the great actress, my dear: could anything be more delicious?" Lady Dering has been absent on the Continent during the season, and is utterly ignorant of all the _on dits_ of the day.
"Charming!" murmurs Florence Ffolliott with the interested inflection of thorough good breeding; but her hands, lying clasped together on her lap, clasp each other cruelly.
"Yes," continues her ladyship. "I knew her father in my young days--Ernest King--the Kings of Essex, you know?" Florence nods assent. "He was the handsomest fellow imaginable, married a lovely Greek girl; and here comes his daughter startling the world with her genius twenty odd years after my little flirtation with him. It makes one feel old, child--old. I called on her the last day I was in London, but she was out; so then I wrote and begged her to come to Stokeham when she could. Now I must leave you, dear. What are you reading? Poetry, of course. I never read anything else either when I was your age and was engaged to Sir Harry." The bright, stately lady laughs gayly as she goes, and Florence Ffolliott sits before her fire until luncheon-time, turning over a dozen wild fancies in her brain--fancies that do no honor either to the man she loves or the woman whom she cannot help disliking heartily. But her just, and withal generous, soul dismisses them at last, and she bows her head to the blow and acknowledges it to be what it is--an accident.