"Philippa--how _can_ you? How would such a thing be _possible_? Really--_really!_ ..." "Well, _really really_ as much as you like, but any woman could propose to a blind man--a little way off, certainly--only I don't know that Gwen ..." However, the Countess stopped short of her daughter's reference to a respectful distance and card-leaving. It was at this point that Gwen and Irene were audible on the stairs, suggesting the lateness of the hour. The Earl said:--"I think I shall go and see Torrens as soon as there's quiet. I have gone to him every evening till now. I may speak to him about this." To which her ladyship replied:--"Now mind you put your foot down. What I am always afraid of with you is indecision." He made no answer, but listened, waiting for the last disappearance couchwards. Then he went to his room for his hand-lamp, as described, and after satisfying himself about that conflagration's non-existence, was just in time to cross Miss Dickenson, a waif overdue, and wonder what on earth had made that very spirit and image of all conformity guilty of such a lapse. Then followed his interview with Mr. Torrens already detailed. Perhaps the foregoing should have come first. If ever you retell the tale you can make it do so. But whatever you do be careful to insist on that point of not talking before the servants. Dwell on the fact that Miss Lutwyche went straight to the Servants' Hall, after putting a finishing touch on her young ladyship, and said to the housekeeper:--"You'll be very careful, Mrs. Masham, to say nothing whatever about her young ladyship and Mr. Torrenson"; it being one of her peculiarities to alter the names of visitors on the strength of alleged secret information, to prove that she was in the confidence of the family. To which Mrs. Masham replied:--"Why not be outspoken, Anne Lutwyche?" provoking, or licensing, further illumination on the subject; with the result that in half an hour the household was observing discreet silence about it, and exacting solemn promises of equal discretion from acquaintances as discreet as itself. But there were words between Mrs. Starfield, the Countess's abettor in dressing, and Miss Lutwyche; the former having found herself forestalled in her theory of the argument in the Lib'ary, which she had reported as the cause of delay, by the latter's prompt expression of cautious reserve, and having accused her of throwing out hints and nothing to go upon. Whereupon the young woman had indignantly repudiated the idea that a frank nature like hers could be capable of an underhand _insinuendo_, and had felt a great and just satisfaction with her powers of handling her mother-tongue. CHAPTER XXIII