"On the vanity of human hopes and the folly of friendship?" inquired Adrien, so coldly as to startle both the company and Lord Standon himself, who not being in Lady Constance's confidence, was naturally at a loss for the reason of this sudden anger on the part of Leroy. He drew back in surprise, but any further reference to the matter was stopped by the entry of Jasper Vermont. As a matter of fact, he had arrived just in time to overhear Adrien's last words.

"What's that?" he cried, after he had greeted Lady Merivale. "Was that Leroy declaiming against the world? It's for those in his position to bewail its vanities, while poor dev--I beg your pardon, Lady Merivale--poor men like myself can only cry for them."

Adrien smiled.

"Quite right, Jasper. I'm wrong, as usual.

"Mr. Vermont," said Lord Merivale, "you remind me of the clown in the beloved pantomime of my youth."

"An innocent memory that, at least, my lord," returned Vermont, who never stayed his tongue in the matter of a repartee for lord or commoner. "May I ask why?"

"You always enter the room with a joke or an epigram," was the answer.

Mr. Vermont smiled.

"'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,'"

he quoted lightly, as he turned his attention to the unfortunate "Portrait of a gentleman." "Ah, what have we here--another picture? An old master, I presume?"

The artists looked pleased; it would seem as if even the great connoisseur himself was liable to make mistakes.

"It is ugly enough, in all conscience," he continued bluntly. "For my part, I am an utter philistine, and like my art to be the same as my furniture--new, pretty to look at, and comfortable, and, for the life of me, I can't fall in love with a snub-nosed Catherine de Medici, or a muscular apostle. What is this?" He bent down to read the t.i.tle. "Ah!

'Portrait of a gentleman of the sixteenth century.' Very valuable, I daresay, Lady Merivale?"

Lady Merivale, who looked upon Mr. Vermont as one of her ancestors would have regarded the Court jester, smiled indifferently.

"It all depends on the point of view," she said. "I have paid three hundred pounds for it."

Mr. Vermont looked up with an air of innocent surprise; but a keen observer might have been tempted to regard it as one of satirical enjoyment.

"Three hundred pounds! I daresay these gentlemen, good judges all, have declared it a bargain?" He motioned to the little group on the other side of Lord Merivale.

"Not at all," returned his hostess. "On the contrary, Mr. Leroy declares it an imposture."

Vermont raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed," he said. "How did he detect the fraud?"

"By the one weak point," said Colman. "That dagger; Rubens never lived to see such a dagger as that, so could not possibly have painted it!"

Mr. Vermont smiled, an approving smile that seemed to mock the picture as if it were a living thing.

"Capital," he said. "The rogue who palmed this forgery on you was evidently not a student of the antique. Poor fellow, how was he to guess who was to be his judge? You will, of course, inst.i.tute proceedings against him, or send the picture back?"

"Impossible," said Lord Merivale, with a rueful smile; "I wrote the cheque last night; by this time it will have been cashed, and so the swindle is complete."

"Dear! dear!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Vermont, in tones of the deepest commiseration, though he smiled as he added: "There's only one thing to be said, my lord. If that picture is clever enough to deceive such great experts, surely it has achieved its object. It certainly looks old enough to satisfy the most exacting of second-hand furniture shops."

He turned to Lady Merivale.

"Before I forget," he said, "let me discharge the object of my visit.

Melba sings to-morrow at the Duke of Southville's party."

Her ladyship's face lighted up with real grat.i.tude. Music was her one sincere pa.s.sion; and, as she had been unable to hear that divine songstress during the season owing to various engagements, this news was welcome.

"Thank you," she said warmly. "How good of you to find out for me. It was kept such a secret. How did you discover it?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Vermont, raising his eyebrows. "If I tell you that, it would be bad policy. I may have discovered it so easily that my services as a solver of mysteries would sink to insignificance, or again I may have had to commit a crime; in either case, it is best to 'draw a veil of silence,' shall we say; sufficient be it that Melba sings, and Lady Merivale deigns to listen."

"Flatterer," she said lightly, as he rose, hat in hand. He glanced across at Adrien, who was talking to Lord Merivale. "I am off on another mission," he said, lowering his voice. "I fancy my friend must be thinking of his honeymoon."

Lady Merivale started violently. "What do you mean?" she asked, striving to maintain her usual cool, indifferent tones.

He looked down at her in innocent surprise.

"I am commissioned to buy a residence in the Swiss Lakes district for Leroy; and as I happen to know Lady Constance Tremaine is devoted to mountaineering--most exhausting work, I consider--well, there is only one construction to be laid. But, of course, this is in strictest confidence; you will not betray me, I know."

"Of course not," said her ladyship mechanically; her mind was working rapidly, so that she hardly heard the rest of Jasper's purring speech; and that gentleman, highly pleased at the pain he had so evidently inflicted, made a parting epigram and left his poison to do its work in Lady Merivale's mind.

One by one, the others followed; and Lord Merivale, with an apology to Leroy, returned to his study and the Agricultural Gazette, having his wife and Adrien alone.

With flushed face and outstretched hands, she turned to him reproachfully.

"I thought you had forgotten me."

"Impossible," he murmured, as he raised her hand to his lips. "I have been so bothered with various business matters, and have had so many engagements----"

"But yet had the time to go to the theatre with that awful creature,"

she retorted. "Then you have been spending a day or two at Barminster."

She bit her lip savagely in her jealous pain and wounded vanity.

"Adrien," she entreated, "tell me it isn't true."

"To what do you refer?" he asked steadily.

He knew that the struggle had commenced, and he was determined to bring this mock phantasy of love to an end. If he could not marry the one woman who had shown him what love really meant, he would at least have done with this foolish dalliance.

"Your engagement to that pink-and-white cousin--Lady----"

"Be silent," he commanded, more sternly than he had ever spoken to any man, woman or child in his life. His face had paled; his eyes were like steel. The very thought of hearing her name reviled by the jealous woman before him filled him with wrath.

She stood silent, but with flashing eyes, her breast heaving with excitement.

"It is true, then?" she panted. "You are going to marry her--tell me the truth----"

"I did not say so," he returned, slowly and painfully.

"Then you don't love her. Ah, I knew it!" she cried triumphantly.

He did not reply; and she read in his silence the confirmation of her fears.