Severne fled out, and the Klosking came slowly in; yet no one had time to take the seat, she glided into it so soon after Severne had vacated it. Zoe Vizard and her friends stared after the flying Severne, then stared at the newcomer, and then turned round and stared at each other, in mutual amazement and inquiry. What was the meaning of this double incident, that resembled a conjurer's trick? Having looked at her companions, and seen only her own surprise reflected, Zoe Vizard fixed her eyes, like burning-glasses, upon Ina Klosking. Then that lady thickened the mystery. She seemed very familiar with the man Severne had been so familiar with. That man contributed his share to the multiplying mystery. He had a muddy complexion, hair the color of dirt, a long nose, a hatchet face, mean little eyes, and was evidently not a gentleman. He wore a brown velveteen shooting-coat, with a magenta tie that gave Zoe a pain in the eye. She had already felt sorry to see her Severne was acquainted with such a man. He seemed to her the _ne plus ultra_ of vulgarity; and now, behold, the artist, the woman she had so admired, was equally familiar with the same objectionable person. To appreciate the hopeless puzzle of Zoe Vizard, the reader must be on his guard against his own knowledge. He knows that Severne and Ashmead were two Bohemians, who had struck up acquaintance, all in a minute, that very evening. But Zoe had not this knowledge, and she could not possibly divine it. The whole thing was presented to her senses thus: a vulgar man, with a brown velveteen shooting-coat and a red-hot tie was a mutual friend of the gentlemanly Severne and the dignified Klosking. Severne left the mutual friend; Mademoiselle Klosking joined the mutual friend; and there she sat, where Severne had sat a moment ago, by the side of their mutual friend. All manner of thoughts and surmises thronged upon Zoe Vizard; but each way of accounting for the mystery contradicted some plain fact or other; so she was driven at last to a woman's remedy. She would wait, and watch. Severne would probably come back, and somehow furnish the key. Meantime her eye was not likely to leave the Klosking, nor her ear to miss a syllable the Klosking might utter. She whispered to Vizard, in a very peculiar tone, “I will play at this table,” and stepped up to it, with the word.