My brother, as you know, is of so curious a temper that I have always been more than chary of even seeming to put myself under an obligation to him. One had the feeling, don't you know, that, if _he_ did not place a wrong construction on one's request, my niece Phyllida _would_... Since Culroyd's engagement, however, poor Aunt Ann's shoulders have been relieved a little of their burden; the family persists in thinking that I contributed to bring it about, whereas I rigidly set my face against any planning of that kind and was only responsible to the extent that Hilda Surdan was staying in my house when my nephew Culroyd met her... The point of importance, however, is that Aunt Ann is now embarrassingly popular. Brackenbury lent me the house almost before I asked for it... Then I had to think how the invitation might be made most attractive to Consuelo. After the _excitement_ of her life in London, undoubtedly the best thing would have been to give her all the rest and quiet that we could. There is, however, a strain of something restless and untamed about her; one pictures her running bare-foot through the woods or plunging into the surf by moonlight; and, though she would overcome that in time, I could not conceal from myself that, on the one occasion when she had dined with us _en famille_, she had flagged... I told her that I hoped to secure some of our common friends; and Will and I worked hard to arrange relays of the people who would best accord, so to say... I started with Major Blanstock, as he seemed her oldest friend. To do him justice, after the first meeting at Connie Maitland's house, I had never seen him with the jackals; he didn't pretend to be in love with her, he didn't talk about the pearls of his friendship and he didn't even refer to her as "Consuelo". "I shall be delighted to come, if I can get away," he said. "Your fascinating young widow is coming," I said, as a bait--though I felt that he had long ago lost interest in her. "_My_ widow?," he repeated. "I am alive--and unmarried, Lady Ann." "Silly man! Our Brazilian heiress," I explained. "Oh! Mrs. Sawyer," he said. "Is she Brazilian? I didn't know that. But it's not fair to embarrass her with my friendship. She is almost a stranger to me; I don't know that she's an heiress, I don't even know that she's a widow." "But," I said, "surely her husband drank himself to death." "Some one told me that he _drank_," said Major Blanstock. "Whether he drank himself to death I can't tell you. I didn't feel it was my affair..."