'Oh, certainly,' Gwen answered with perfect composure (she was never lacking in that repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere). 'But as it's rather a long story to tell, perhaps you'll excuse my sitting down while I tell it.' And Gwen half took a chair herself, but at the same time half compelled Sir Henry to push it towards her also, with a sort of grudging unmannerly politeness. Sir Henry, after standing himself for a second or two longer, and then discovering that Gwen was waiting for him to be seated before beginning to disclose her business, dropped in a helpless querulous fashion into the small armchair opposite, and prepared himself feebly for the tête-à-tête. 'The business I've come about,' Gwen went oft quietly, is a rather peculiar one. The fact is my father and I travelled to Rome the other day in the same railway carriage with your servant, whose name, he told us, is Colin Churchill.' Sir Henry nodded a non-committing acquiescence. 'The deuce!' he thought to himself. 'Something or other turned up already against him.--I hope, I'm sure, Miss--ur--let me see your card here once more--ur--Miss Howard-Russell--I hope, I'm sure, he didn't in any way behave impertinently, or make himself at all disagreeable to you. You see, one's obliged to put one's servants into carriages with other people on these continental lines, which of course is very unpleasant for--ur--for those other people.' 'Not at all,' Gwen answered with a charming smile, which almost melted even stony old Sir Henry. 'Not at all; quite the contrary, I assure you. His society and conversation were really quite delightful. Indeed, that's just what I've come about.' Sir Henry wriggled uneasily in his chair, put up his eyeglass for the third time, and stared at Gwen in puzzled wonderment. His valet's society was really quite delightful! How extraordinary! Could this very handsome and quite presentable young woman--with a double-barrelled surname too--be after all nothing more than a lady's maid who had had a flirtation with his new valet? But if so, and if she had come to propose for Churchill, so to speak, what the deuce could she want to see _him_ for? He dropped his eyeglass once more in silent dubitation, and merely muttered cautiously: 'Indeed!' 'Yes, very much so altogether,' Gwen went on boldly, in spite of Sir Henry's freezing rigidity. 'The fact is, I wanted to speak to you about him, because, you know, really and truly, he isn't a valet at all, and he oughtn't to be one.' Sir Henry started visibly. 'Not a valet!' he cried. 'Why, if it conies to that, I've found him a very useful and capable person for the place. But I don't quite understand you. Am I to gather that you mean he's an impostor--a thief in disguise, or something of that sort? I picked him up, certainly, under rather peculiar circumstances, just because he could speak a little Italian.'