"Indeed I do. My nephew isn't a companion for me. He's in the city all day and out most evenings, or he brings his friends in and they get smoking." Miss Keating's smile was now released from its terrible constraint. A slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left it rosy. But having committed herself to the policy of hesitation she had a certain delicacy in departing from it now. "Are you quite sure you would care to have _me_?" "My dear, I am quite sure that I don't care to have any one who is not a lady; and I am quite sure that I am talking to a lady. It is very seldom in these days that one can be sure." Miss Keating made a little bow and blushed. After a great deal of conversation it was settled that she should exchange the Cliff Hotel for the Métropole that night, and that she should stay there until she left Southbourne for Surbiton, with Mrs. Jurd. When Colonel and Mrs. Hankin looked in to report upon the weather, this scheme was submitted to them as to supreme judges in a question of propriety. Mrs. Tailleur was not mentioned. Her name stood for things that decorous persons do not mention, except under certain sanctions and the plea of privilege. The Colonel might mention them to his wife, and his wife might mention them to Mrs. Jurd, who might pass them on with unimpeachable propriety to Miss Keating. But these ladies were unable to discuss Mrs. Tailleur in the presence of the Colonel. Still, as none of them could do without her, she was permitted to appear in a purified form, veiled in obscure references, or diminished to an innocent abstraction. Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her--er--her present situation. The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs. Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating's present situation, laughed through the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity. He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so precipitate, so marked. Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently compromised already. "I don't think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way." He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed if the women lost their heads. He looked gravely at Miss Keating. That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her within measurable distance of the verge.