person would be. "It would have come to
Long himself?"

But she was impatient of this. "Oh, one doesn't know what comes--or what
doesn't--to Long himself! I'm not sure he's too modest to
misrepresent--if he had the intelligence to play a part."

"Which he hasn't!" I concluded.

"Which he hasn't. It's to _me_ they might have spoken--or to each
other."

"But I thought you exactly held they _had_ chattered in accounting for
his state by the influence of Lady John."

She got the matter instantly straight. "Not a bit. That chatter was mine
only--and produced to meet yours. There had so, by your theory, to be a
woman----"

"That, to oblige me, you invented _her_? Precisely. But I thought----"

"You needn't have thought!" Mrs. Briss broke in. "I didn't invent her."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I didn't invent her," she repeated, looking at me hard. "She's true." I
echoed it in vagueness, though instinctively again in protest; yet I
held my breath, for this was really the point at which I felt my
companion's forces most to have mustered. Her manner now moreover gave
me a great idea of them, and her whole air was of taking immediate
advantage of my impression. "Well, see here: since you've wanted it, I'm
afraid that, however little you may like it, you'll have to take it.
You've pressed me for explanations and driven me much harder than you
must have seen I found convenient. If I've seemed to beat about the bush
it's because I hadn't only myself to think of. One can be simple for
one's self--one can't be, always, for others."

"Ah, to whom do you say it?" I encouragingly sighed; not even yet quite
seeing for what issue she was heading.

She continued to make for the spot, whatever it was, with a certain
majesty. "I should have preferred to tell you nothing more than what I
_have_ told you. I should have preferred to close our conversation on
the simple announcement of my recovered sense of proportion. But you
_have_, I see, got me in too deep."

"O-oh!" I courteously attenuated.

"You've made of me," she lucidly insisted, "too big a talker, too big a
thinker, of nonsense."

"Thank you," I laughed, "for intimating that I trifle so agreeably."

"Oh, _you've_ appeared not to mind! But let me then at last not fail of
the luxury of admitting that _I_ mind. Yes, I mind particularly. I may
be bad, but I've a grain of gumption."

"'Bad'?" It seemed more closely to concern me.

"Bad I may be. In fact," she