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All Lesbia's other conquests had counted as barren honour;
but if she could have brought herself to accept Mr. Smithson she would
have secured the very best match of the season.
To marry a plain Mr. Smithson--a man who had made his money in iron--in
cochineal--on the Stock Exchange--had seemed to her absolute
degradation, the surrender of all her lofty hopes, her golden dreams.
But Lady Kirkbank had put the question in a new light when she said that
Smithson would be offered a peerage. Smithson the peer would be
altogether a different person from Smithson the commoner.
But was Lady Kirkbank sure of her facts, or truthful in her statement?
Lesbia's experience of her chaperon's somewhat loose notions of truth
and exactitude made her doubtful upon this point.
Be this it might she was inclined to be civil to Smithson, albeit she
was inwardly surprised and offended at his taking her refusal so calmly.
'You see that I am determined not to lose the privilege of your society,
because I have been foolish!' he said presently, in the pause after the
first part of the recital.


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