“Not exactly, dear,” said Lady Tamplin; “but this girl, this Katherine Grey, is actually a cousin of mine. One of the Worcestershire Greys, the Edgeworth lot. My very own cousin! Fancy!”

“Ah-ha,” said Lenox.

“And I was wondering⁠—” said her mother.

“What there is in it for us,” finished Lenox, with that sideways smile that her mother always found difficult to understand.

“Oh, darling,” said Lady Tamplin, on a faint note of reproach.

It was very faint, because Rosalie Tamplin was used to her daughter’s outspokenness and to what she called Lenox’s uncomfortable way of putting things.

“I was wondering,” said Lady Tamplin, again drawing her artistically pencilled brows together, “whether⁠—oh, good morning, Chubby darling: are you going to play tennis? How nice!”