"Well, of all the things!" cried Eliza, half aloud; and, oblivious both of discretion and of the new raspberry-red cotton twill coverlet, she backed, and sat, plump, upon the edge of the bed. Just then, as she asserted in subsequently recounting this remarkable incident, you might have knocked her down with a feather. "Of all the things!" she repeated, after an interval of breathless amazement. "And how long has this been going on, I should like to know? So that is the reason of a certain gentleman's iciness, and his stand-offish high-mightiness. Well, I never! And poor darling Peachie, so trustful and confiding all the time; not that she need fear comparison with anybody.--Bah! the serpent." Nevertheless she was deeply impressed, and fell into a vein of furious speculation as to who this unlooked-for smart lady might be. Then, suddenly remembering the highly compromising nature of her own existing position sitting not only in the lively little Farge's bed-chamber, but actually upon his bed, she rose with embarrassment and haste, and made her way downstairs to the offices--treading circumspectly in dread of creaking boards--to interview Frederick. But from that functionary she obtained scant information. "Zee lady she ask for Mr. Iglesias. I tell her I go to find him. I put her in zee drawing-room." "Quite right, Frederick,"--this encouragingly from Eliza. "But she no stay zere. She come again out quick. She not any name, not any visiting card give; only write somezing, very fast, on a piece of paper and screw it togezzer. Zen she not wait till I return, but behind me upstairs chase." So there was nothing for it, as the great Eliza perceived, but to retire to the drawing-room, and--Mrs. Porcher happened to be out--note the hour and, with the door discreetly half open, await the descent of the intruder from the floor above. "I can just catch darling Peachie, too," she said to herself, "and draw her aside. To meet such a person unexpectedly, on the stairs or in the hall, would be enough to make her turn quite faint." CHAPTER XXV Poppy St. John laid her hands lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulders and smiled at him. She looked very young, yet very worn; and the corners of her mouth shook. "If you were anybody else," she said, "I believe I should give you a kiss. But I am not going to, so don't be nervous, dear man. I'll be perfectly correct, I promise you--only I had to come. I have been good, absolutely tiptop beastly good, I tell you. I have washed the slate. It is as clean as a vacuum, as the inside of an exhausted receiver. And I feel as dull as empty space before the creation got started."