“I can’t see what ambition would be served by standing about in a London crowd in clothes not one’s own,” she said. “It sounds to me like the act of a lunatic; but as Lady Jennings considers me eccentric already, I have no doubt, if you were to choose to put the notion into her head, she would think me quite capable of what you suggest you saw me do. In that case I should simply have to leave her house, where I am very comfortable and very useful to her. For she would certainly worry my life out, and I would not submit to that from anybody.” Gerard bowed, but he did not promise, as she wished him to do, to say nothing to Lady Jennings. There was another short silence. “I am afraid you will think me a bore, Miss Davison, for obtruding upon you so long,” said he, in another attempt to get away. She detained him instead. “Are you going to speak to Lady Jennings--and--and my mother?” she asked imperiously. “If there is nothing in my fancy, what harm is there in my mentioning to both the ladies the extraordinary coincidence?” said he. “It would prepare them, at any rate, for other such coincidences--which will most certainly arise in the future.” And he tried to retreat. “I can’t let you frighten my poor old mother, and worry Lady Jennings to death,” she said imperiously. “I must speak to you. I can’t here of course; but I must explain.” Explanation was just what he wanted, and Gerard’s heart beat high at the word. “Shall I call--” he began. She interrupted him by a shake of the head. “No, no,” she said. “How can we talk before her? Let me see.” She took out an engagement book from her carriage pocket, and glanced at it reflectively. “Will you meet me to-morrow somewhere and take me to tea?” she said. “I shall be delighted.” “I’ll get Lady Jennings to lend me the victoria to-morrow, and meet you outside Lyons’ tea room at four. Will that do?” She spoke with the air of an angry empress, cold, reserved, with a suggestion of suppressed thunder in look and voice. Gerard went away in a state of bewilderment impossible to describe. Not only was he now quite sure that it was she whom he had seen in the crowd, but he knew that she had the strongest possible objection to its being known that she led a double life. He could not understand it. If she had been a clever “sensational” journalist, with subjects to work up by actual observation, as he had at first supposed, there was no reason in the world why she should not have confessed the fact to him. Although he was not an intimate friend of hers, she knew him quite well enough for an ordinary girl to feel sure that he could be trusted with a paltry little secret such as that. It was true that she might naturally prefer to keep her own counsel to her friends on such a point: old ladies would certainly feel nervous about such an undertaking on the part of a handsome young girl as the passing under a disguise.