"_Have_ you got another situation? I suppose not," Mr. Grig went on. "No--not yet." "Have you tried for one?" "No." "Then what are you about?" "Oh! My father left me a little money--very little, but I’m not starving." "So I should judge.... Well, tell me all about it." "I didn’t mean to be rude to her--really I didn’t. It was about a small bill of Lord Mackworth’s." She related the episode in detail, repeating the conversation with marvellous exactitude, but with too many "she saids, she saids" and "I saids, I saids." Mr. Grig laughed when she came to the offer to pay the bill herself, and after a moment she gave a slight responsive smile. She was very careful not to make or even to imply the least charge against Miss Grig, and she accomplished the duplicity with much skill. "I can promise you one thing," said Mr. Grig. "The moment I get back I’ll see that Milly is sacked. I cannot stick that bag of bones." "_Please_ don’t!" "You don’t want me to?" Lilian shook her head slowly. "All right, then. I won’t. Now I’ll tell you the whole business in a nutshell. My sister’s a great woman. She’s perfectly mad, but she’s a great woman. Only where I’m concerned she’s always most monstrously unscrupulous. I’m her religion--always was, but more than ever since I bought that amusing business. She was dying of boredom. It saved her. When I got myself divorced she was absolutely delighted. She had me to herself again. Her jealousy where I’m concerned is ferocious. She can’t help it, but it’s ferocious. Tigresses aren’t in it with her. She was jealous of you, and she’d determined to clear you out. I’ve perceived that for a long time." "But why should she be jealous of me? I’m sure I’ve never----" "Well, she’s damned clever, Isabel is, and she’s seen that I’m in love with you. Gone--far gone!" He spoke with strange detachment, as of another person. The thud-thud of Lilian’s heart appalled her. She blushed down to her neck. Her hand shook. The restaurant and all its inhabitants vanished in a cloud and then slowly reappeared. Her confusion of mind was terrible. She was shocked, outraged, by the negligently brutal candour of the avowal; and at the same time she was thinking: "I’d no idea that any man was as marvellous as this man is, and I don’t think there can possibly be another man quite as marvellous anywhere. And his being in love with me is the most ravishing, lovely, tender--tender--tender thing that ever happened to any girl. And, of course, he is in love with me. He’s not pretending. _He_ would never pretend...."