st in time to cross Miss Dickenson,
a waif overdue, and wonder what on earth had made that very spirit and
image of all conformity guilty of such a lapse.

Then followed his interview with Mr. Torrens already detailed. Perhaps
the foregoing should have come first. If ever you retell the tale you
can make it do so. But whatever you do be careful to insist on that
point of not talking before the servants. Dwell on the fact that Miss
Lutwyche went straight to the Servants' Hall, after putting a finishing
touch on her young ladyship, and said to the housekeeper:--"You'll be
very careful, Mrs. Masham, to say nothing whatever about her young
ladyship and Mr. Torrenson"; it being one of her peculiarities to alter
the names of visitors on the strength of alleged secret information, to
prove that she was in the confidence of the family. To which Mrs. Masham
replied:--"Why not be outspoken, Anne Lutwyche?" provoking, or
licensing, further illumination on the subject; with the result that in
half an hour the household was observing discreet silence about it, and
exacting solemn promises of equal discretion from acquaintances as
discreet as itself. But there were words between Mrs. Starfield, the
Countess's abettor in dressing, and Miss Lutwyche; the former having
found herself forestalled in her theory of the argument in the Lib'ary,
which she had reported as the cause of delay, by the latter's prompt
expression of cautious reserve, and having accused her of throwing out
hints and nothing to go upon. Whereupon the young woman had indignantly
repudiated the idea that a frank nature like hers could be capable of an
underhand _insinuendo_, and had felt a great and just satisfaction with
her powers of handling her mother-tongue.

CHAPTER XXIII

PSYCHOLOGIES ABOUT THE COUNTESS. HOW GWEN WOULDN'T GO TO ATHENS, OR
ROME, OR TO STONE GRANGE. BUT SHE WOULD GO WITH HER COUSIN CLO TO
CAVENDISH SQUARE. HOW THEY DROVE OVER TO GRANNY MARRABLE'S, AND
DAVE'S LETTER WAS TALKED ABOUT. HIS AMANUENSIS. OH, BUT HOW STRANGE
THAT PHOEBE SHOULD READ MAISIE'S WRITING AGAIN! AN ODIOUS LITTLE
GIRL, WITH A STYE IN HER EYE. AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE. HOW
MICHAEL'S FRIENDS SHOULD BE ESCHEWED, IF NOT HIMSELF. HOW GRANNY
MARRABLE AND HER SISTER HAD MADE SLIDES ON ICE THAT THAWED SEVENTY
YEARS AGO. HOW A LADY AND GENTLEMAN JUMPED FARTHER OFF

The Countess of Ancester was mistaken when she said to Gwen's mother