The door was already closed, but between the curtains which his hands had drawn apart, Prince Maiyo was standing in the room which they had just quitted, and there was something in the calm impassivity of his white, stern face which seemed to madden her.

She clenched her hands and looked away.
"Really, I was not so much bored as I had feared," the Duchess remarked composedly.

"That Stretton-Wynne woman generally gets on my nerves, but her nephew seemed to have a restraining effect upon her.

She didn't tell me more than once about her husband's bad luck in not getting Canada, and she never even mentioned her girls.

But I do think, Penelope," she continued, "that I shall have to talk to you a little seriously.