I gave them all
up. "Ah, I think it will be only _he_ who can tell you! My point is that
you've the instinct--playing in you, on either side, with all the ease
of experience--of what you are to each other. All I mean is that it's
the instinct that Long and _his_ good friend must have. They too perhaps
haven't spoken to each other. But where he comes she does, and where she
comes he does. That's why I know she's among us."

"It's wonderful what you know!" Mrs. Brissenden again laughed. "How can
you think of them as enjoying the facilities of people in _our_
situation?"

"Of people married and therefore logically in presence? I don't," I was
able to reply, "speak of their facilities as the same, and I recognise
every limit to their freedom. But I maintain, none the less, that so far
as they _can_ go, they do go. It's a relation, and they work the
relation: the relation, exquisite surely, of knowing they help each
other to shine. Why are they not, therefore, like you and Brissenden?
What I make out is that when they do shine one will find--though only
after a hunt, I admit, as you see--they must both have been involved.
Feeling their need, and consummately expert, they will have managed,
have arranged."

She took it in with her present odd mixture of the receptive and the
derisive. "Arranged what?"

"Oh, ask _her_!"

"I would if I could find her!" After which, for a moment, my
interlocutress again considered. "But I thought it was just your
contention that _she_ doesn't shine. If it's Lady John's perfect repair
that puts that sort of thing out of the question, your image, it seems
to me, breaks down."

It did a little, I saw, but I gave it a tilt up. "Not at all. It's a
case of shining as Brissenden shines." I wondered if I might go
further--then risked it. "By sacrifice."

I perceived at once that I needn't fear: her conscience was too
good--she was only amused. "Sacrifice, for mercy's sake, of what?"

"Well--for mercy's sake--of his time."

"His time?" She stared. "Hasn't he all the time he wants?"

"My dear lady," I smiled, "he hasn't all the time _you_ want!"

But she evidently had not a glimmering of what I meant. "Don't I make
things of an ease, don't I make life of a charm, for him?"

I'm afraid I laughed out. "That's perhaps exactly it! It's what Gilbert
Long does for _his_ victim--makes things, makes life, of an ease and a
charm."

She stopped yet again, really wondering at me now. "Then it's the