duction. She inclined to
partisanship with the Countess. Why--see how mad the whole thing was!
The girl had fancied herself in love with him after seeing him barely
once, for five minutes. It never could last. She was, however, quite
prepared to back Gwen if it did show signs of being, or becoming, a
_grande passion_. Meanwhile, evidently the kindest thing was to turn
her mind in another direction, and the inoculation of an Earl's
daughter with the virus of an enthusiasm which has been since called
_slumming_ presented itself to her in the light of an effort-worthy end.
Sister Nora was far ahead of her time; it should have fallen twenty
years later.

But she was not going to imperil her chances of success by using too
strong a _virus_ at the first injection. Caution was everything. This
projected visit to Sapps Court was a perfect stepping-stone to a
stronger regimen, such as an incursion into the purlieus of Drury Lane.
Tom-all-alone's might overtax the nervous system of a neophyte. The
full-blown horrors which civilisation creates wholesale, and remedies
retail, were not to be grappled with by untrained hands. A time might
come for that; meanwhile--Sapps Court, clearly!

The two ladies had a quiet drive back to the Towers. How very quiet the
latter end of a drive often is, as far as talk goes! Does the Ozymandian
silence on the box react upon the rank and file of the expedition, or is
it the hypnotic effect of hoof-monotony? Lady Gwen and Miss Grahame
scarcely exchanged a word until, within a mile of the house, they
identified two pedestrians. Of whom their conversation was precisely
what follows, not one word more or less:--

"There they are, Cousin Chloe, exactly as I prophesied."

"Well--why shouldn't they be?"

"I didn't say anything about shoulds and shouldn't. I merely referred to
facts.... Come--_say_ you think it ridiculous!"

"I can't see why. Their demeanour appears to me unexceptionable, and
perfectly dignified. Everything one would expect, knowing the
parties...."

"Are they going to walk about like that to all eternity, being
unexceptionable? That's what I want to know?"

"You are too impatient, dear!"

"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it _seems_
months. And never getting any nearer! And then when you talk to them
about each other, they speak of each other _respectfully_! They really
do. He says she is a shrewd observer of human nature, and she says he
appears to have h