“Well, I suppose it is,” said Lady Gale slowly; “it’s quite silly of me, but we’re all of us rather moving in the dark. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing. And then there’s Alice.” “What exactly has she got to do with it?” asked Mrs. Lester. “My dear, she has everything.” Lady Gale sighed. You must have heard when you were in town that she was, more or less, ‘allotted’ to Tony. Of course it hadn’t actually come to any exact words, but it was very generally understood. I myself hadn’t any doubt about the matter. They were to come down here to fix it all up. As a matter of fact, coming down here has undone the whole thing.” “Yes, of course I’d heard something,” said Mrs. Lester. “As a matter of fact I had been wondering rather. Of course I could see that it wasn’t, so to speak, coming off.” “No. Something’s happened to Tony since he came down, and to Alice too, for that matter. But at first I didn’t worry; in fact, quite between ourselves, I was rather glad. In town they were neither of them very keen about it; it was considered a suitable thing and they were going to fall in with it, and they were quite nice enough, both of them, to have carried it on all right afterwards. But that wasn’t the kind of marriage that I wanted for Tony. He’s too splendid a fellow to be lost and submerged in that kind of thing; it’s too ordinary, too drab. And so, when he came down here, I saw at once that something had happened, and I was glad.” “I understand,” said Mrs. Lester, her eyes shining. “But I asked him nothing. That has always been our plan, that he shall tell me if he wants to, but otherwise I leave it alone. And it has worked splendidly. He has always told me. But this time it is rather different. As soon as he told me anything I should have to act. If he told me who the girl was I should have to see her, and then you see, I must tell my husband. As soon as I know about it I become the family, and I _hate_ the family.”