This time Miss Lance was in her drawing-room, seated in one of the pair of chairs which were arranged for intimate conversation. She did not rise, but held out her hand to him, with a soft impulse towards the other--in which Colonel Kingsward accordingly seated himself, with a solemnity upon his brow which she had no difficulty in interpreting, quick-witted as she was. She did not loose a shade upon that forehead, a note of additional gravity in his voice. She knew as well as he did the duty which he had come to perform. And she was a woman--not only quick-witted and full of a definite aim, but one who took real pleasure in her own dexterity, and played her _rôle_ with genuine enjoyment. She allowed him to open the conversation with much dignified earnestness, and even to begin, “My dear Miss Lance,” his countenance charged with warning before she cut the ground from under his feet in the lightest, yet most complete way. “I know you are going to say something very serious when you adopt that tone, so please let me discharge my mind first. Mrs. Revel kindly came to me after you left yesterday, and she has made every inquiry--indeed, as she compelled me to go back with her to dinner, I saw for myself----” “Mrs. Revel?” said the Colonel. “Didn’t you know he was married? Oh, yes, to a great friend of mine, a dear little woman. It is in their house I meet my artists, whom I told you of. Tuesday is her night, and they were all there. I was able to make my investigations without any betrayal. But I am very, very sorry to say, dear Colonel Kingsward, equally without any effect.” “Without any effect,” Colonel Kingsward repeated, confused. He was not so quick-witted as she was, and it took him some time to make his way through these mazes. Revel, the painter, was a name, indeed, that he had heard vaguely, but his wife, so suddenly introduced, and her “night,” and the people described as my artists, wound him in webs of bewilderment through which it was very difficult to guide his steps. It became apparent to him, however, after a moment, that whatever those things might mean, the ground had been cut from under his feet. “Does Mrs. Revel know?” he added after a moment, in his bewilderment. “Know--our poor dear boy? Oh, yes; I took him there--in my foolish desire to do the best I could for him, and thinking that to see other circles outside of his own was good for a young man. I couldn’t take him the round of the studios, you know--could I? But I took him to the Revels. She is a charming little woman, a woman whom I am very fond of, and--more extraordinary still, don’t you think, Colonel Kingsward?--who is fond of me.”