the air in my
general neighborhood.

"Has any one later intelligence than what I bring from my nephew's
bedside?"

So she hadn't perceived who my companion at the step had been! Well, she
should be enlightened, they all should be enlightened, and vengeance was
mine. I spoke with gentleness:--

"Your nephew's impressions, I fear, are still confused by his deplorable
misadventure."

"May I ask what you know about his impressions?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the hand of Mrs. Trevise move toward
her bell; but she wished to hear all about it more than she wished
concord at her harmonious table; and the hand stopped.

Juno spoke again. "Who, pray, has later news than what I bring?"

My enemy was in my hand; and an enemy in the hand is worth I don't know
how many in the bush.

I answered most gently: "I do not come from Mr. Mayrant's bedside,
because I have just left him at the front door in sound health--saving a
bruise over his left eye."

During a second we all sat in a high-strung silence, and then Juno
became truly superb. "Who sees the scars he brazenly conceals?"

It took away my breath; my battle would have been lost, when the Briton
suggested: "But mayn't he have shown those to his Aunt?"

We sat in no silence now; the first et cetera made extraordinary sounds
on his plate, Mrs. Trevise tinkled her handbell with more unction than I
had ever yet seen in her; and while she and Daphne interchanged streams
of severe words which I was too disconcerted to follow, the other et
ceteras and the honeymooners hectically effervesced into small talk. I
presently found myself eating our last course amid a reestablished calm,
when, with a rustle, Juno swept out from among us, to return (I suppose)
to the bedside. As she passed behind the Briton's chair, that invaluable
person kicked me under the table, and on my raising my eyes to him he
gave me a large, robust wink.

X: High Walk and the Ladies

I now burned to put many questions to the rest of the company. If,
through my foolish and outreaching slyness with the girl behind the
counter, the door of my comprehension had been shut, Juno had now opened
it sufficiently wide for a number of facts to come crowding in, so to
speak, abreast. Indeed, their simultaneous arrival was not a little
confusing, as if several visitors had burst in upon me and at once begun
speaking loudly, each shouting a separate and important matter which
demanded my intelligent co