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The drive only takes an hour, and the moonlight nights are delicious at this time of the year. 'I am in Lady Kirkbank's hands, answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I am her goods, her chattels; she takes me wherever she likes. 'But would you refuse to do me this honour if you were a free agent? 'I can't tell. I hardly know what it is to be a free agent.
Lesbia had been impressed by that story of poor Belle Trinder and by Lady Kirkbank's broad assertion that half the young women in London were running after Mr. Smithson; and she had made up her mind to treat the man with supreme scorn. She did not want his houses or his yachts.
'One can see the season is waning when these people begin to pester with their accounts, said Lady Kirkbank, who always talked of tradesmen as if they were her natural enemies. Lesbia accepted this explanation of the avalanche of bills, and never suspected Lady Kirkbank's influence in the matter. It happened, however, that the chaperon, having her own reasons for wishing to bring Mr.
She had had a great many remittances from that generous grandmother; and the money had all gone, somehow. It was gone, and yet she had paid for hardly anything. She had accounts with all Lady Kirkbank's tradesmen.
Smithson's high opinion of her; but she was deeply grieved if anything in her manner had given him reason to think that he was more to her than a friend, an old friend of dear Lady Kirkbank's, whom she was naturally predisposed to like, as Lady Kirkbank's friend. Horace Smithson turned pale as death, but if he was angry, he gave no utterance to his angry feelings.
It was Ascot week, the crowning glory of the year, and Lesbia and her chaperon had secured tickets for the Royal enclosure or it may be said rather that Lesbia had secured them for the Master of the Royal Buckhounds might have omitted poor old Lady Kirkbank's familiar name from his list if it had not been for that lovely girl who went everywhere under the veteran's wing.
He belonged to that serious circle to which Lady Kirkbank's house appeared about as reputable a place of gathering as a booth on a race-course. And now Lady Kirkbank told Lesbia that this Mr. Smithson, a nobody with a great fortune, was a man whose addresses she, the sister of Lord Maulevrier, ought to welcome. Mr.
'Your dear grandmother is as rich as Croesus, and she is generosity itself; and how should I ever forgive myself if I allowed you to appear in society in an inadequate style. You have to take a high place, the very highest place, Lesbia; and you must be dressed in accordance with that position. Lesbia said no more. After all it was Lady Kirkbank's business and not hers.
She had been full of life and energy to-day on board the yacht during the racing, in which she seemed to take an ardent interest. The Cayman had followed the racers for three hours through a freshening sea, much to Lady Kirkbank's disgust, and Lesbia had been the soul of the party. The same yesterday.
Some lateral branch of the standard-bearer's family tree might have borne this illustrious twig. Lady Kirkbank and all Lady Kirkbank's friends seemed to have conspired to teach Lesbia Haselden one lesson, and that lesson meant that money was the first prize in the great game of life. Money ranked before everything before titles, before noble lineage, genius, fame, beauty, courage, honour.
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