‘I wonder what Sebastian is doing,’ she remarked, still graciously. ‘He really seems to have his hands quite full.’ At that moment he came in. ‘Sorry to be so late, but Sutcliffe kept me. Soup? No, thanks. I’ll trouble you for some of that cold fowl, Hugo, please.’ ‘And will you give me a little sherry, my dear?’ said his mother. Sebastian, too, changed countenance at this tone, privately wondering ‘what next?’ but poured out the sherry with imperturbable gravity. The meal proceeded in silence for some little time, until it occurred to Sebastian to ask, ‘Where have you been all morning, mother?’ ‘Driving,’ was the vague reply, and another pause ensued. Sebastian poured out a glass of sherry, drank some of it, and then thought he would trouble Hugo again; he was so awfully hungry. Hugo, with a gravity amounting to gloom, wrenched the second wing from the fowl before him, and placed it upon Sebastian’s plate. Sebastian was watching the operation with the intense eagerness of a mind quite at ease; and it was at this juncture that Mrs. Mallory said, ‘Sebastian, I am sorry to hear of a very strange thing in connection with that girl--what is her name?--whose uncle’s affairs you somehow got mixed up with.’ Hugo’s eyes gave a flash. That was what was coming. ‘Do you mean Miss Adrienne Blisset?’ asked Sebastian, in a distinct voice. ‘Blisset--yes, Miss Blisset. She professes to take a great interest in the relief affairs.’ ‘So far as I know, the interest is real--at least if hard work is any test of reality.’ ‘She appears to choose very strange people as her intimate friends.’ ‘Myself, _par exemple_?’ he suggested. War was now declared. The blandness had disappeared from Mrs. Mallory’s countenance. The excitement remained. Her son did not appear to her to be excited, but Hugo, glancing at him, felt a little thrill as he saw all the slight signs which he so well understood, and which told him that his friend was moved, much moved, unpleasantly moved. Mrs. Mallory, all unconscious how much Sebastian knew, and reckless of the storm she was inviting to descend upon herself, continued, ‘I must say, I hope you are not amongst her intimate friends, unless you wish to be placed on the level of low, immoral, atheistical work-people; the very dregs of the lower orders.’ ‘It is asserted that Miss Blisset selects her friends from the dregs of the lower orders?’ he inquired, with ominous politeness. ‘The case does not rest on mere assertion. Her uncle professed peculiar opinions, and she carries them to extremes, as is the way with those women who have been brought up amongst men, and always led a vagabond life.’ Sebastian smiled slightly as he carefully balanced a fork upon his little finger. ‘_Après?_’ he inquired.