I was still, pretending that I had not heard. She had spoken softly, so that the pretence seemed plausible; though I was conscious that it was but seeming, for Vi reads me as if I were an open book. But I had not the courage to reply. Indeed, it was a question to which I had not yet found an answer. In that lay the sting. How about Edith? was what I kept asking myself all the time. Nor had I found a solution to the problem when I reached the door of Milady's lodgings. Lady Desmond's taste is not in all things mine; particularly is that the case with her taste in lodgings. The rooms in Clarges Street are kept by an ancient man and woman who are, no doubt, worthy folk enough, but who are also stupid, slow, and behind the times. I was shown into what is called the drawing-room--a fusty apartment, the very atmosphere of which was synonymous with depression. My hostess rose to receive me; a little stiff, bony figure, dressed in old clothes, which were ill-fitting and old-fashioned when she first had them. It was an extraordinary thing, but I have never seen that woman in what looked like a new dress yet. I believe that when she buys things she stores them away, never putting them on till they are old--and rumpled. In her left hand she had a stick; she extended two fingers of her right to me by way of greeting. Edith came towards me from the struggling fire in the dingy fireplace. God knows she is past her first beauty; but she will always be young to me. As I took her hand in mine I told myself, for the thousandth time, what a coward I was not to have made her my wife long ago. This is not a sentimental age, and I am not a sentimental man; but for her I would go through the fires of hell. Yet there we were, I an old bachelor, she a spinster yet. Marriage, nowadays, is surrounded with so many complications. 'Hollo, Douglas! Going strong? Isn't this place enough to give you the horrors?' This was Reggie, who had preceded me. The final portion of his remark was whispered. The dinner was in keeping with the rooms; badly chosen, badly cooked, badly served. No one ate anything; no one talked. One couldn't even drink; the wine was frightful. We sat there like mutes at our own funerals. For my part I was glad when the cloth was cleared; though I knew that a bad quarter of an hour was coming. It could scarcely be worse than what had gone before. The old lady fired the first shot. 'Edith, had you not better withdraw?' 'No, mother. I know what you are going to say, and, as I am as much interested in it as any one else, I should prefer to stop.' My hostess wasted no time in argument or preamble; she came straight to the point.