not my fault. I didn't know. . . . I didn't want this. . . . If you will. . . . If you will help me I will do my best . . . not . . . to. . . ."
The eyes of the Dowager searched her right through.
"No, you are not to blame," she said judicially. "We are all going to help you," and then in a voice which cracked in the middle she added, to her own surprise, "my dear."
III
At luncheon the girl had the place of honor at the right hand of his Grace. It was a rather chastened assembly. The arrival of the cuckoo in the nest was a fitting climax to Muriel. Both episodes were felt to be buffets of a wholly undeservedly severity; they might even be said to have shaken a sublime edifice to its base. Not for a moment had the collective wisdom of the Dinneford ladies connived at Muriel's Breadth, nor had it in any way countenanced the absurd fellow Jack in his infatuation for a chorus girl.
Simple justice, however, compelled these stern critics to own that Bridport's future duchess had come as a rather agreeable surprise. She differed so much from the person they had expected. They couldn't deny that she was a personality. Moreover, there was a force, a distinction that might hope to mold and even harmonize with her place in the table of precedence. So good were her manners that the subtle air of the great world might one day be hers.
It amazed them to see the effect she had already had on their fastidious and difficult parent. He was talking to her of men and events and times past in a way he
