"Now, Jane, you have married a most respectable old gentleman; I dare say you have nothing on earth to conceal from him--remember I've said all along I don't suppose there is--but as the young wife of an old man, you ought to remember how very delicate your position is." "What do you mean?" "I mean, _generally_," answered the old lady, oracularly. "I do declare this is perfectly insufferable! What's the meaning of this lecture? I'm as little likely, madam, as _you_ are to disgrace myself. You'll please to walk out of my room." "And how dare you talk to me in that way, young lady; how dare you attempt to hector me like your maid there?" broke out old Lady Alice, suddenly losing her self-command. "You know what I mean, and what's more, _I_ do, too. We _both_ know it--you a young bride--what does Jekyl Marlowe invite you down here for? Do you think I imagine he cares twopence about your stupid old husband, and that I don't know he was once making love to you? Of course I do; and I'll have nothing of the sort here--and that's the reason I've come, and that's why I'm in that dressing-room, and that's why I'll write to your husband, so sure as you give me the slightest uneasiness; and you had better think well what you do." The old lady, in a towering passion, with a fierce lustre in her cheeks, and eyes flashing lightning over the face of her opponent, vanished from the room. Lady Alice had crossed the disputed territory of the Window dressing-room, and found herself in her elected bed-room before she had come to herself. She saw Lady Jane's face still before her, with the lurid astonishment and fear, white and sharp, on it, as when she had threatened a letter to General Lennox. She sat down a little stunned and confused about the whole thing, incensed and disgusted with Lady Jane, and confirmed in her suspicion by a look she did not like in that young lady's face, and which her peroration had called up. She did not hear the shrilly rejoinder that pursued her through the shut door. She had given way to a burst of passion, and felt a little hot and deaf and giddy. When the party assembled at dinner Lady Jane exerted herself more than usual. She was agreeable, and even talkative, and her colour had not been so brilliant since her arrival. She sat next to Guy Strangways, and old Lady Alice at the other side of the table did not look triumphant, but sick and sad; and to look at the two ladies you would have set her down as the defeated and broken-spirited, and Lady Jane as the victrix in the late encounter. The conversation at this end of the table resembled a dance, in which sometimes each man sets to his partner and turns her round, so that the whole company is frisking and spinning together; sometimes two perform; sometimes a _cavalier seul_. Thus was it with the talk of this section of the dinner-table, above the salt, at which the chief people were seated.