"So I supposed, from what you said." Vanbrugh smiled and Dolly laughed as their eyes met. "I was here first," said Vanbrugh after a moment. "Not at all. I have been at least an hour at old Mrs. Trehearne's." "I may have seen you go in, and I may have waited all that time to catch you on the door-step." "So like you! Why are you not defending the chemist who cremated his fifth wife alive in a retort, or the cashier who hypnotised the head of his firm and made him sign cheques with his eyes shut, or the typhus-germ murderer, or something nice and interesting of that sort? Are you growing lazy in your old age, Mr. Vanbrugh?" "Awfully!" "How well you talk. When I have made a beautiful long speech and have beaten my memory black and blue for words I cannot remember, just to be agreeable--you say 'awfully,' and think you are making conversation." "I am not good at conversation." "Apparently not. However, you will not have much chance of showing off your weakness this morning." "Why not?" "You might say you are sorry! Why not? Because I am not going far." "How far?" "That is a rude question. It is like asking me where I am going. But I will be nice and tell you--just to make you feel your inferiority. I am going to see Marion Darche." "Mrs. Darche lunches about this time." "Exactly. It is within the bounds of possibility that I may be going to lunch with her." "Oh, quite!" Again there was a short pause as the two walked on together. Dolly took rather short, quick steps. Vanbrugh did not change his gait. There are men who naturally fall into the step of persons with whom they are walking. It shows an imitative disposition and one which readily accepts the habits of others. Neither Dolly nor her companion were people of that sort. "I was thinking of Mrs. Darche," said Dolly at last. "So was I. Extremes meet." "They have met in that case, at all events," answered Dolly, growing serious. "It would not be easy to imagine a more perfectly ill-matched couple than Marion and her husband." "Do you think so?" asked Vanbrugh, who was never inclined to commit himself. "Think so? I know it! And you ought to know it, too. You are always there. Nobody is more intimate there than you are." "Yes,--I often see them." "Yes," said Dolly looking keenly at him, "and I believe you know much more about them than you admit. You might as well tell me." "I have nothing especial to tell," answered Vanbrugh quietly. "There is something wrong. Well--if you will not tell me, Harry Brett will, some day. He is not half so secretive as you are." "That does not mean anything. The word secretive is not to be found in any respectable dictionary, nor in any disreputable one either, so far as I know." "How horrid you are! But it is quite true. Harry Brett is not in the least like you. He says just what he thinks." "Does he? Lucky man! That is just what I am always trying to do. And he tells you all about the Darches, does he?"