"She and Oliver? I've no doubt Oliver thinks--or thought--they were. What view he takes now, poor fellow, I'm sure I don't know. But I don't somehow think Alicia will be able to carry on the game indefinitely. Lady Lucy is losing patience." Diana sat in silence. Lady Niton could not exactly decipher her. But she guessed at a conflict between a scrupulous or proud unwillingness to discuss the matter at all or hear it discussed, and some motive deeper still and more imperative. "Lady Lucy has been ill too?" Diana inquired at last, in the same voice of constraint. "Oh, very unwell indeed. A poor, broken thing! And there don't seem to be anybody to look after them. Mrs. Fotheringham is about as much good as a broomstick. Every family ought to keep a supply of superfluous girls. They're like the army--useless in peace and indispensable in war. Ha! here's Sir James." Both ladies perceived Sir James, coming briskly up the garden path. As she saw him a thought struck Diana--a thought which concerned Lady Niton. It broke down the tension of her look, and there was the gleam of a smile--sad still, and touching--in the glance she threw at her companion. She had been asked to tea to meet a couple of guests from London with whose affairs she was well acquainted; and she too thought Sir James had been playing Providence. Sir James, evidently conscious, saw the raillery in her face, pinched her fingers as she gave him her hand, and Diana, passing him, escaped to the garden, very certain that she should find the couple in question somewhere among its shades. Lady Niton examined Sir James--looked after Diana. "Look here!" she said, abruptly; "what's up? You two understand something I don't. Out with it!" Sir James, who could always blush like a girl, blushed. "I vow that I am as innocent as a babe unborn!" "What of?" The tone of the demand was like that of a sword in the drawing. "I have some guests here to-day." "Who are they?" "A young man you know--a young woman you would like to know." Silence. Lady Niton sat down again. "Kindly ring the bell," she said, lifting a peremptory hand, "and send for my carriage." "Let me parley an instant," said Sir James, moving between her and the bell. "Bobbie is just off to Berlin. Won't you say good-bye to him?" "Mr. Forbes's movements are entirely indifferent to me--ring!" Then, shrill-voiced--and with sudden fury, like a bird ruffling up: "Berlin, indeed! More waste--more shirking! He needn't come to me! I won't give him another penny." "I don't advise you to offer it," said Sir James, with suavity. "Bobbie has got a post in Berlin through his uncle, and is going off for a twelvemonth to learn banking." Lady Niton sat blinking and speechless. Sir James drew the muslin curtain back from the window. "There they are, you see--Bobbie--and the Explanation. And if you ask me, I think the Explanation explains." Lady Niton put up her gold-rimmed glasses.