Lesley did not like these effusive expressions of affection. But she answered, gently--

"Mamma was quite well, thank you." Which answer did not give Mrs.

Romaine all the information that she desired.

"I have been looking at a pretty poodle dog over the way," she went on, conscious of some desire to change the subject. "Its mistress has been putting it through all sorts of tricks--ah, there it is again!"

"The Kenyons' dog?" said Mrs. Romaine, smiling, as she looked at the little group which had once more formed itself upon the balcony. "Oh, I see. That is young Mr. Kenyon, the doctor, a great friend of your father's; and that is his sister, Ethel Kenyon, the actress."

"My father spoke about her," said Lesley.

"Oh, yes, he admires her very much. He wrote a long article about her in the _Tribune_ once. Do you see the _Tribune_ regularly? Your dear father writes a great deal for it, and I am sure you must appreciate his exquisite writing."

"Do you know Miss Kenyon too?"

"Oh, yes, I know her very well. And I expect to know her better very soon, because I suppose we shall be connections before long."

Lesley looked a smiling inquiry.

"I have a younger brother--my brother Oliver," said Mrs. Romaine, with a little laugh; "and younger brothers, dear, have a knack of falling in love. He has fallen in love with Ethel, who is really a nice girl, as well as a pretty and a clever girl, and I believe they will be married by and by."

Lesley could not have said why, but somehow at that moment she was distinctly glad of the fact.

CHAPTER VIII.

OLIVER'S INTENTIONS.

"Well, what is she like?" Oliver Trent asked, lightly, of his sister Rosalind, when they met that evening at dinner.

"Lesley Brooke? She is a handsome girl," said Mrs. Romaine, with some reserve of manner.

"Nothing more?"

His sister waited until the servant had left the room before she replied.

"I wish you would be discreet, Oliver. My servants are often at the Brookes' with messages. I should not like them to repeat what you were saying."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man to whom women's caprices are incomprehensible. But he was silent until dessert was placed upon the table, and Mrs. Romaine's neat parlor-maid had disappeared.

"Now," he said, "you can disburthen your mind in peace."

"Oliver," said Mrs. Romaine, abruptly. "I want you to make Miss Brooke's acquaintance as soon as you can. I don't understand her, and I think that you can help me."

"As how!"

"Oh, don't be silly. You always get on with girls, and you can tell me what you think of her."

Oliver raised his eyebrows, took a peach from the dish before him, and began to peel it with great deliberation.

"Handsome, you say?"

"Very."

"Like Lady Alice? I remember her; a willowy, shadowy creature, with a sort of ethereal loveliness which appealed very strongly to my imagination when I was a boy."

Mrs. Romaine flushed a little. It occurred to her that _she_ had never been called shadowy or ethereal-looking.

"She is much more substantial than Lady Alice," she said, drily. "I should say that she had more individuality about her. She looks to me like a girl of character and intellect."

"In which case your task will be the more difficult, you mean?"

"I don't know what you mean by a task. I have not set myself to do anything definite."

"No? Then you are very unlike your s.e.x, Rosalind. I generally find women much too definite--d.a.m.nably so."

"Well, then, I must be an exception. You are always trying to entrap me into damaging admissions, Oliver, and I won't put up with it. All that I want is to be sure that Lady Alice shall not return to her husband. But there is nothing definite in that."

"Oh, nothing at all," said Oliver, satirically. "All that you have got to do is to prejudice father and daughter against each other as much as possible, make Brooke believe that the girl has been set against him by her mother, and persuade Miss Brooke that her father is not the sort of man that Lady Alice can return to. Nothing definite in that, is there?"

"Oliver, you are quite too bad. I never made any plans of the kind." But there was a distinctly guilty look in Mrs. Romaine's soft eyes.

"Besides, that is a piece of work which hardly needs doing. Father and daughter are too much alike to get on."

"Alike, are they?"

"Yes, in a sense. The girl is very like her mother, too--she has Lady Alice's features and figure, but the expression of her face is her father's. And her eyes and her brow are her father's. And she is like her father--I think--in disposition."

"You have found out so much that I think you scarcely need me to interview her in order to tell you more. What do you want me to do?"

"I want to find out more about Lady Alice. Could you not get Ethel Kenyon to ask her about her mother, and then persuade Ethel to tell you?"

"Can't take _Ethel_ into our confidence," said Oliver with a disparaging emphasis upon the name. "She is such a little fool." And then he began to roll a cigarette for himself.

Mrs. Romaine watched him thoughtfully for a minute or two. "Noll," she said at length, "I thought you were really fond of Ethel?"

Oliver's eyes were fixed upon the cigarette that he was now lighting, and, perhaps, that was the reason why he did not answer for a minute or two. At last, he said, in his soft, drawling way--

"I am very fond of Ethel. And especially of the twenty thousand pounds that her uncle left her."

"Ethel Kenyon is handsome enough to be loved for something beside her money."

"Handsome? Oh, she's good-looking enough: but she's not exactly to my taste. A little too showy, too abrupt for me. Personally I like a softer, quieter woman; but as a rule the women that I really admire haven't got twenty thousand pounds."

"I know who would suit you," said Mrs. Romaine, leaning forward and speaking in a very low voice--"Lesley Brooke."

"What is her fortune? If it's a case of her face is her fortune, she really won't do for me, Rosy, however suitable she might be in other respects."