"Luckily," added Dr. Vivian, "I'm in good time to serve as a guide." But Miss Heth was already walking past him with an expensive rustle, moving straight toward the stairway. For this, needless to say, was not the moment to speak that pointed word or two which should unmask the man; there would be an unavoidable vulgarity about it here, in this solitude. And even if she should get no further opportunity upstairs--well, after all, the situation spoke for itself; nay, thundered. Had not Hugo--come to think of it--struck the note of the subtler victory, he who had given magnificently and said nothing? _Noblesse oblige_, as the Gauls say.... "Oh, no, that's not necessary," she replied, walking on. "There are the stairs...." The young man fell in behind her. "The old house is really quite bewildering, upstairs. It happened that my office was the only place available. Perhaps you will let me show you--" "Oh, I don't think I need trouble you, thank you." "It is no trouble," said V. Vivian. Good sentences these, and well pronounced. With them, conversation seemed to languish. The processional pair moved across the shadowy court in entire silence. The benevolent lady led, never so securely entrenched in the victorious order, the beloved of prodigal Hugo Canning, to whom no harm should befall. After her proceeded the slum doctor: the hard marble betrayed the inequality of his footsteps. A minute more and they would be upstairs, swallowed and dispersed in the publicity of the meeting. Floor and ceiling above them brought down the sounds of a company near at hand, the scraping of a chair-leg, the muffled echo of voices. Carlisle's foot trod upon the bottom step of the broad stairway. "I wonder if you would give me five minutes after the meeting, Miss Heth?" said the young man's voice behind her. "There's a--a matter I've wanted very much to speak to you about." Cally's heart seemed to jump a little. "What is it that you want to speak to me about?" she asked coolly, not turning. And, to her own surprise, she brought her other foot up on the stair. "Well, it concerns the Works," said Vivian. And he added at once, hastily: "Oh, nothing that you need object to at all, I hope. Not at all...." She had stopped short at the fighting-word, and turned, pink-cheeked. Certes, there was a point at which _noblesse oblige_ becomes mere flabby spinelessness. And upstairs Mrs. Heth, complacent right up at the front, craned round her neck, and thought that Cally was very long in coming.... "Yes? What about the Works?" said Cally, her breath quickening. "Oh, I don't mean to detain you now, of course--" "But now that you have detained me?" she pursued, with no great polish of courtesy. The young man raised a hand and pushed back his hair, which was short but wavy. It was observed that he wore, doubtless in memory of his uncle, a mourning tie of grosgrain silk, replacing the piquant aquarium scene.