And another time she actually came to me with tickets for one of her "hops," and pointed out to me that I should be saving a shilling by taking both a pink ticket as well as a blue one. But while these were the results of my whispered false intelligence on Miss Windus and Miss Causton and Miss Levey, the results on Evie Soames were both foreseen and unforeseen. I had foreseen that it would give me a new liberty with her; but I had not foreseen that she, and not I, would be the first to take advantage of that liberty. It came to me entirely as a surprise that she should see no reason why, if my heart was engaged, she should not speak of it as a matter of course to myself. This, to my great confusion, she did. It was in the small back room that we called the library, among the book-shelves and glass-cases of mimeographs and gelatine copiers and patent tills, that she did so. I had seen her talking to Weston in the empty lecture-room as I had passed through to restore a book to its place--a new translation of "Schmoller on the Mercantile System," I remember it was--and she had turned as I had passed. I think she had been a little nervous about the pretty little exhibition she intended. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that she had actually practised the words she was going to use, and I am quite sure she meant to go through it creditably. My lady was even then looking forward to the time when, on a small scale or a large one, she would have to do these things. So she followed me into the library, and, with one slender hand on the iron ball-arm of the copying press under the gas said her little piece. "Oh, Mr Jeffries!... I hear I have to congratulate you!" For a moment I did not take her meaning. Then it dawned on me, and I felt a quick constriction of my heart that was both bliss and pain. "Oh?... On--on what?" I asked. I couldn't help stammering a little over it. She wore a brown cloth tailor-made costume and a thick knitted cap of white wool; and the shadow of this cap over her large eyes was not so deep but that I saw the almost reproachful look in them. It was almost as if she echoed: "'On what?' Can such a wonderful thing have happened to you and you ask 'On what?'" "On this we hear of your engagement," she replied, looking down at her toes. "It's--it's true, isn't it?" For the second time I felt my facile invention sitting somewhat less easily on me. I stammered again, while she, I am quite sure, misattributed my embarrassment. "Who told you that?" At that she was sweetly arch. "Oh, a little bird, Mr Jeffries! Don't tell me it isn't true--it would be almost--almost like bad luck----" "Bad luck?" I repeated foolishly. "I mean, like wearing your wedding dress before the day, or something like that--congratulating you too soon, I mean----" By this time I had collected my thoughts. "It isn't true," I said.