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He had no interest in intrigue or gossip or the manipulation of ecclesiastical strings. He left people like Miss Crabbage to do those things for him. He was the Duchess's best friend.

Hignett said that luncheon was ready. They went in.

Janet had always felt this dining-room to be the coldest and most uncomfortable room in London. The walls were papered with squares of black and white imitation marble; half a dozen portraits hung in gold frames of a desperate heaviness. The elephantine marble mantlepiece supported a huge clock of black marble, and between the two windows was a marble bust of the late Duke in a Gladstonian collar and a marble watch-chain. The high thick curtains that framed the windows were of a dull lustreless red.

To-day this room depressed her desperately. It seemed to step forward and say to her: "You were pleased and flattered by their welcome of you in that other room. But make no mistake, this is the life that you will have to lead. This room holds the Halkin Street atmosphere. It is here that you will be imprisoned."