Very likely it was all a blunder of the kid's, and Charlotte Eldridge had never said any such thing. Was it likely she would say, "Of course, Titus calls her Judith, when they're alone"? Still, the deposition did sound like that, and that was a damnable mischief-making woman, mind you! Challis was conscious, as he said this to himself, of an image of Charlotte Eldridge, rather a graceful one, turning an impish glance over her shoulder to see the effect of some apple of discord, just thrown. There was a skittishness about this image, a skirt-sweep, that was true to life. So was the becoming hat the odious woman always wore indoors whenever she could, with that meaning feather in it. How Challis hated her as he thought to himself that they all meant, somehow, her studentship in the University in which that dowdy Eros, whom we mentioned before, was Dean of the Faculty of Discord-breeding between a lady and gentleman, about a gentleman or lady. But they were the constituents of a Stylish Female, according to John Eldridge, her husband, the victim of peritonitis. "Come _in_!" No wonder Mr. Challis said it a little impatiently, when a knock came at his study-door, because he had just got his idea, and was at last effectively at work again upon the Ostrogoths. The impatience caused Marianne, who had knocked, to say that another time would do as well. But to her husband's sensitive hearing the tone, distant and severe, in which she said it spoke volumes. And the Tables of Contents of those volumes related to gulfs placed between married couples resident in Wimbledon by fashionable beauties with a turn for the stage. It was a large order for a mere tone of voice, but it was quite filled out, as the commercial phrase it. Challis could not possibly allow Marianne to depart, closing the door with aggressive gentleness. It would have been checking the items of the large order. "Come back!" he shouted. "What _is_ it? How _can_ you be absurd, Polly Anne? Come in!" Polly Anne came in, but every step of her entry was fraught with instant withdrawal. "I won't keep you a minute, because of Steptoe and the dinner," she said, jumbling her context horribly. "Only I must know if you're going out or not." Challis really tried to be jolly and good-natured over it. "Oh no! it's all right," said he. "I'm at home to-night." "You had better make sure." She spoke rather like an iceberg--a forbearing one, but still an iceberg. "Look at your cards on the chimney-piece." Now, the fact was that the lady knew the position, having gone over the ground the evening before in her husband's absence. "The pink card!" said she. And thus guided, Challis found himself brought to book--convicted of inconsiderate forgetfulness alike of his friend and his household. "I wish you would be more careful," said the iceberg. "But I really did think the Acropolis was to-morrow, the twenty-third." "To-day is the twenty-third." One more degree of frost on the iceberg.