"Oh," said Beresford, "that's all right." "I'm glad to hear it. Satisfactory, and all that sort of thing, eh?" "Perfectly. Why do you ask?" "Well, to tell you the truth," said Simnel, with that kind of honest bluntness, that inexpressible frankness, generally assumed by a man who is going to say something disagreeable, "I had an idea that it was quite the opposite. When we dined with you the other day,--deuced good dinner it was too; I was right to recommend you there, wasn't I? I haven't tasted such spitchcocked eels for years; and that man's moselle has a finer faint flavour of the muscat than any I know in England,--when we dined with you, as I say, I fancied things were all wrong with the lady. I talked to the old boy, as in duty bound, and listened to all his platitudes about the influence of money--as though I didn't know about that, good lord! But the whole time I was listening, and chiming in here and there with such interjections as I thought appropriate, I kept my eye on you and madam; and from what I saw, I judged it wasn't all plain-sailing. I was right; wasn't I?" "Well," said Mr. Beresford, between his teeth, "you were, and that's the truth. We've come to grief somehow; but how, I can hardly tell. It was going on splendidly; I had followed all your instructions to the letter, and, in fact, I was thoroughly accepted as her brother, when she suddenly veered round; and though I can't say she's been unkind, yet she has lost all that warmth that so pleasantly characterised her regard; and now, I think, rather avoids me than otherwise." "You've not overdone it, have you? Not been lapsing into your old style of flirtation, and--" "No; on my honour, no. I rather think some of her friends have been putting the moral screw on. You recollect a Miss Lexden--Mrs. Churchill that is now?" "Perfectly! But _she_ would not be likely to object to a flirtation." "Not as mademoiselle, but as madame she has rangéed herself, and I believe her husband is a straight-laced party. She was up at Uplands for a couple of days, and rather snubbed me when I presented myself there in my fraternal character. I've been putting things together in my mind, and I begin to think that Mrs. Schröder's coldness dated from Mrs. Churchill's visit." "Likely enough. I daresay Mrs. Churchill goes in tremendously now for all the domestic virtues. If a reformed rake makes the best husband, a penitent flirt ought to make the best wife; and, by all accounts, Miss Barbara Lexden was a queen of the art. I hear that she and her husband lead a perpetually billing-and-cooing existence, like a pair of genteelly-poor turtles, in some dovecot near Gray's Inn."