Gwen was roused from weighing the possibilities of the truth of this
surmise by the voice of one of its subjects. "How very engrossing our
letters seem to be this morning!" said the Countess, with a certain air
of courteous toleration, as of seniority on Olympus. "But perhaps I have
no right to inquire." This with _empressement_.

"Don't be so civil, mamma dear, please!" said Gwen. "I do hate
civility.... No, there's nothing of interest. Yes--there is. Lady
Torrens says she hopes you won't forget your promise to come and talk
about abolishing negroes. I didn't know you were going to."

The Countess skipped details. "Let me see the letter," said she,
forsaking her detached superiority. She began to polish a double
eyeglass prematurely.

"Can't show the letter," said Gwen equably, as one secure in her rights.
"That's all--what I've told you! Says you promised to drive over and
talk, and she hoped to interest you--oh no!--it's not you, it's the
Torpeys are to be interested."

"Oh--the Torpeys," said the Countess freezingly. Because it was
humiliating to have to put away those double eyeglasses. "Perhaps if
there is anything else of interest you will tell me. Do not trouble to
read the whole."

"But _did_ you promise to drive over to Pensham? Because, if you did, we
may just as well go together. With all those men at the Towers, I shall
have to bespeak Tom Kettering and the mare."

"I think something _was_ said about my going over. But I certainly made
no promise." Her ladyship reflected a moment, and then said:--"I think
we had better be free lances. I am most uncertain. It's a long drive. If
I do go, I shall lunch at the Parysforts, which is more than half-way,
and go on in the afternoon to your aunt at Poynders. Then I need not
come back till the day after. I could call at Pensham by the way."

"I won't go to old Goody Parysforts--so that settles the matter! When
shall I tell Adrian's mamma you are coming?"

"Are you going there at once?"

"Yes--to-morrow. I must see Adrian to talk to him about my old ladies,
before I talk to either of them." Thereupon the Countess became
prodigiously interested in the story of the twins, a subject about which
she had been languid hitherto, and her daughter was not sorry, because
she did not want to be asked again what Irene had said, which might have
involved her in reading that young lady's text aloud, with extemporised
emendations, possibly complex. She put that letter away,