--and it would be infallible--had suddenly cropped
up. There would be excitement, amusement, discernment in it; it would be
indeed but a more roundabout expression of interest and sympathy. It
would, above all, pack the question I had for so many hours been
occupied with into the compass of a needle-point. I was dazzled by my
opportunity. She had had an uncertainty, in other words, as to whom I
meant, and that it kept her for some seconds on the rack was a trifle
compared to my chance. She would give herself away supremely if she
showed she suspected me of placing my finger on the spot--if she
understood the person I had not named to be nameable as Gilbert Long.
What had created her peril, of course, was my naming Lady John. Well,
how can I say in any sufficient way how much the extraordinary beauty of
her eyes during this brevity of suspense had to do with the event? It
had everything--for it was what caused me to be touched beyond even what
I had already been, and I could literally bear no more of that. I
therefore took no advantage, or took only the advantage I had spoken
with the intention of taking. I laughed out doubtless too nervously, but
it didn't compromise my tact. "Don't you know how she's perpetually
pouncing on him?"

Still, however, I had not named him--which was what prolonged the
tension. "Do you mean--a--do you mean----?" With which she broke off on
a small weak titter and a still weaker exclamation. "There are so _many_
gentlemen!"

There was something in it that might in other conditions have been as
trivial as the giggle of a housemaid; but it had in fact for my ear the
silver ring of poetry. I told her instantly whom I meant. "Poor Briss,
you know," I said, "is always in her clutches."

Oh, how it let her off! And yet, no sooner had it done so and had I
thereby tasted on the instant the sweetness of my wisdom, than I became
aware of something much more extraordinary. It let her off--she showed
me this for a minute, in spite of herself; but the next minute she
showed me something quite different, which was, most wonderful of all,
that she wished me to see her as not quite feeling why I should so much
take for granted the person I _had_ named. "Poor Briss?" her face and
manner appeared suddenly to repeat--quite, moreover (and it was the
drollest, saddest part), as if all our friends had stood about us to
listen. Wherein did poor Briss so intimately concern her? What, pray,
was my ground for such f