"May I ring for the real Richards, and---- Oh, I beg your pardon, Blake, how are you? May I ring for the real Richards, and send word to your mother, Anna?" Grantley was, as usual, urbane and unperturbed. "I'll go and find her for you. I think she's lying down." "Oh, well, then----" "No, I know she'll want to see you," and Anna ran lightly out of the room. Grantley strolled to an armchair and sank into it. He did not look at Blake, nor, his formal greeting given, appear conscious of his presence. Young Blake was in a turmoil. He hated to see Grantley; all the odious thought of his failure and defeat was brought back. He hated that Grantley should have seen him making love to Anna Selford, for in his heart he was conscious that he could not cheat an outside vision as he could manage to cheat himself. But both these feelings, if not swallowed up in fear, were at least outdone by it. His great desire had been to settle this matter finally and irrevocably before a hint of it came to the ears either of Grantley or of Sibylla. What would Grantley do now? "You saw us?" he asked in a sullen anxious voice. "I couldn't help it. I'm sorry," said Grantley in colourless politeness. "Well?" "I really don't understand your question, Blake. At least, you seem to mean it for a question." "You do know what I mean. I'm not going to ask any favours of you. I only want to know what you intend to do?" "About what?" "About what you saw--and heard too, I suppose?" Grantley rose from his chair in a leisurely fashion, and stood with his back to the fire. He was looking at young Blake with a slight smile; Blake grew redder under it. "Oh, I can't beat about the bush!" Blake went on impatiently. "You might, if you chose, tell Miss Selford what you know." "Well?" said Grantley in his turn. "And--and---- Oh, you see what might happen as well as I do. I--I meant to--to explain at my own time; but----" "I shouldn't let the time come in a hurry, Blake. It'll be a very awkward quarter of an hour for both of you, and quite unnecessary." "Unnecessary?" There was a ring of hope in Blake's voice; he liked to be told that any such confession was unnecessary, and would have welcomed such an assurance even from Grantley's hostile lips. "Certainly; and equally unnecessary that I should tell Anna anything." He paused a moment, and then went on. "In a different case I might think I had a different duty--though, being what you might call an interested party, I should consider carefully before I allowed myself to act on that view. But as matters stand, you yourself have made any action on my part superfluous." "I have?"