CHAPTER I.
HOW DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND, AND HOW THE SPARKS FLEW.
The windows are all wide open, and through them the warm, lazy summer wind is stealing languidly.

The perfume of the seringas from the shrubbery beyond, mingled with all the lesser but more delicate delights of the garden beneath, comes with the wind, and fills the drawing-room of The Place with a vague, almost drowsy sense of sweetness.
Mrs.Bethune, with a face that smiles always, though now her very soul is in revolt, leans back against the cushions of her lounging chair, her fine red hair making a rich contrast with the pale-blue satin behind it.
"You think he will marry her, then ?" "Think, think!" says Lady Rylton pettishly.

"I can't afford to _think_ about it.

I tell you he _must_ marry her.

It has come to the very last ebb with us now, and unless Maurice consents to this arrangement----" She spreads her beautiful little hands abroad, as if in eloquent description of an end to her sentence.
Mrs.Bethune bursts out laughing.