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Mrs. Cornford's eyes spoke her surprise.

"No, we're not rich," said Joan, answering the unspoken question; "we are of the impoverished nobility. If I were a man I should go to America and marry somebody very wealthy and live a cat and dog life until I was well and truly divorced. As I am a girl, I must marry a home-bred millionaire. Which I shall not do."

"But surely...." began Mrs. Cornford.

"The house, the estate, our London house, are, or were until a week ago, mortgaged. We are the poorest people in the county."

Joan's cool confession took the other's breath away.

"I'm sorry," she said gently. "It is rather terrible for you."

"It isn't a bit," said Joan. "Besides, everybody here is at poverty's door. Everybody except the mysterious Mr. Morlake, who is popularly credited with being a millionaire. But that is only because he doesn't discuss his mortgages. Everybody else does. We sit round one another's tables and talk foreclosures and interests and the price of corn and cattle disease, but mostly we talk about the loss the country will sustain when the improvident nobility are replaced by the thrifty democracy."