"We shall come to that presently," said Lady Henry, shortly. "Imagine, please, the kind of difficulties in which these confidences, if they have gone any further--and who knows?--may land me. I shall have old Lord Lackington--who behaved like a brute to his daughter while she was alive, and is, all the same, a _poseur_ from top to toe--walking in here one night and demanding his granddaughter--spreading lies, perhaps, that I have been ill-treating her. Who can say what absurdities may happen if it once gets out that she is Lady Rose's child? I could name half a dozen people, who come here habitually, who would consider themselves insulted if they knew--what you and I know."

ABOUT