“Delighted, dearest; do bring her. And I think she should SEE Mr. Mitchett.” “Shall I find him here too then?” “Oh take the chance.” The two women, on this, exchanged, tacitly and across the room--the Duchess at the door, which a servant had arrived to open for her, and Mrs. Brookenham still at her tea-table--a further stroke of intercourse, over which the latter was not on this occasion the first to lower her lids. “I think I’ve shown high scruples,” the departing guest said, “but I understand then that I’m free.” “Free as air, dear Jane.” “Good.” Then just as she was off, “Ah dear old Edward!” the guest exclaimed. Her kinsman, as she was fond of calling him, had reached the top of the staircase, and Mrs. Brookenham, by the fire, heard them meet on the landing--heard also the Duchess protest against his turning to see her down. Mrs. Brookenham, listening to them, hoped Edward would accept the protest and think it sufficient to leave her with the footman. Their common consciousness that she was a kind of cousin, a consciousness not devoid of satisfaction, was quite consistent with a view, early arrived at, of the absurdity of any fuss about her. III When Mr. Brookenham appeared his wife was prompt. “She’s coming back for Lord Petherton.” “Oh!” he simply said. “There’s something between them.” “Oh!” he merely repeated. And it would have taken many such sounds on his part to represent a spirit of response discernible to any one but his mate. “There have been things before,” she went on, “but I haven’t felt sure. Don’t you know how one has sometimes a flash?”