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But Janet was of her world, and to-day nothing could be fine enough for her. The Duchess took her off to a little gilt sofa near the window, held her hand in her soft boneless fingers, and spoke straight from her heart. This thing had made her happy as nothing had ever made her happy before. Although she had not heard directly of Wildherne's so famous intrigue, she was nevertheless more in the world than was the Duke, and whispers, murmurs of something, anything, had come to her ears.

Always she had been haunted by the fear that he, their only child, the true hope of the world, would marry someone unworthy. In these dreadful godless democratic days anybody might marry anybody. And now, after all her fears, he had chosen of all the young women she knew the one whom perhaps she herself preferred. A marvellous, marvellous piece of luck and fortune, and now, as she looked at the girl so tall, so graceful, so perfectly at ease and in her right place, she was more than ever reassured. Moreover, the girl would be easy to dominate. She had been poor, struggling, with scarcely enough to eat; she would be so grateful for everything, so ready to fall into any plans, to do what she was told, to follow her mother-in-law's lead.