"Well--August, then!" "No--that's grouse, not glow-worms. You see, you are reduced to July, and it's July still. Do take my advice, Mr. Pellew, and leave Natural History alone. Nobody will ever know you know nothing about it, if you hold your tongue." The Hon. Percival was silent. He was not thinking about his shortcomings as a Natural Historian. The reflection in his mind was:--"What a pity this woman isn't twenty years younger!" He could discriminate--so he imagined--between mere flippancy and spontaneous humour. The latter would have sat so well on the girl in her teens, and he would then have accepted the former as juvenile impertinence with so much less misgiving that he was being successfully made game of. He could not quite shake free of that suspicion. Anyhow, it was a pity Miss Smith-Dickenson was thirty-seven. That was the age her friend Lady Ancester had assessed her at, in private conversation with Mr. Pellew. "Though what the deuce my cousin Philippa"--thus ran a very rapid thought through his mind--"could think I wanted to know the young woman's age for, I can't imagine." "There it is!" said the lady, stooping over the glow-worm. "Little hairy thing! I won't disturb it." She got on her feet again, saying:--"Thank you--I'm all right!" in requital of a slight excursion towards unnecessary help, which took the form of a jerk cut short and an apologetic tone. "But don't talk Zoology or Botany, please," she continued. "Because there's something I want you to tell me about." "Anything consistent with previous engagements. Can't break any promises." "Have you made any promises about the man upstairs?" "Not the ghost of a one! But he isn't 'the man upstairs' to me. He's the man in the room at the end of my passage. That's how I came to see him." "You did see him?" "Oh yes--talked to him till the nurse stopped it. I found we knew each other. Met him in the Tyrol--at Meran--ten years ago. He was quite a boy then. But he remembered me quite well. It was this morning." "Did he recognise you, or you him?" "Why--neither exactly. We found out about Meran by talking. No--poor chap!--he can't recognise anybody, by sight at least. He won't do that yet awhile." The lady said "Oh?" in a puzzled voice, as though she heard something for the first time; then continued: "Do you know, I have never quite realised that ... that the eyes were so serious. I knew all along that there was _something_, but ... but I understood it was only weakness." "They have been keeping it dark--quite reasonably and properly, you know--but there is it! He can't see--simply can't see. His eyes _look_ all right, but they won't work. His sister knows, of course, but he has bound her over to secrecy. He made me promise to say nothing, and I've broken my promise, I suppose. But--somehow--I thought you knew." "Only that there was _something_--no idea that he was blind. But I won't betray your confidence."