d some conversation
with him, I gather."

"Oh!"

"But why? Why 'Oh!'--I mean?"

"I didn't mean anything. Only that she was looking so scared and unhappy
at breakfast, and that would account for it."

"Surely ..."

"Surely what?"

"Well--does it want accounting for? A man shot dead almost in sight of
the house, and by your own gamekeeper! Isn't that enough?"

"Enough in all conscience. But it makes a difference. All the
difference. I can't exactly describe.... It is not as if she had never
met him in her life before. _Now_ do you see?..."

"Never met him in her life before?..." The Hon. Percival stands waiting
for more, one-third of his cigar in abeyance between his finger-tips.
Getting no more, he continues:--"Why--you don't mean to say?..."

"What?"

"Well--it's something like this, if I can put the case. Take somebody
you've just met and spoken to...." But Mr. Pellew's prudence became
suddenly aware of a direction in which the conversation might drift, and
he pulled up short. If he pushed on rashly, how avoid an entanglement of
himself in a personal discussion? If his introduction to this lady had
been days old, instead of merely hours, there would have been no
quicksands ahead. He felt proud of his astuteness in dealing with a wily
sex.

Only he shouldn't have been so transparent. All that the lady had to do
was to change the subject of the conversation with venomous decision,
and she did it. "What a beautiful dark green fritillary!" said she. "I
hope you care for butterflies, Mr. Pellew. I simply dote on them." She
was conscious of indebtedness for this to her sister Lilian. Never
mind!--Lilian was married now, and had no further occasion to be
enchanting. A sister might borrow a cast-off. Its effect was to make the
gentleman clearly alive to the fact that she knew exactly why he had
stopped short.

But Miss Smith-Dickenson did _not_ say to Mr. Pellew:--"I am perfectly
well aware that you, sir, see danger ahead--danger of a delicate
discussion of the difference _our_ short acquaintance would have made to
me if I had heard this morning that _you_ were shot overnight. Pray
understand that I discern in this nothing but restless male vanity,
always on the alert to save its owner--or slave--from capture or
entanglement by dangerous single women with no property. You would have
been perfectly safe in my hands, even if your recommendations as an
Adonis had been less equivocal." She said no such thing. But