s--it has positively given him a mind and a tongue. _That's_ what has
come over him."

"Then," I said, "it's a most extraordinary case--such as one really has
never met."

"Oh, but," she objected, "it happens."

"Ah, so very seldom! Yes--I've positively never met it. Are you very
sure," I insisted, "that Lady John is the influence?"

"I don't mean to say, of course," she replied, "that he looks fluttered
if you mention her, that he doesn't in fact look as blank as a
pickpocket. But that proves nothing--or rather, as they're known to be
always together, and she from morning till night as pointed as a
hat-pin, it proves just what one sees. One simply takes it in."

I turned the picture round. "They're scarcely together when she's
together with Brissenden."

"Ah, that's only once in a way. It's a thing that from time to time such
people--don't you know?--make a particular point of: they cultivate, to
cover their game, the appearance of other little friendships. It puts
outsiders off the scent, and the real thing meanwhile goes on. Besides,
you yourself acknowledge the effect. If she hasn't made him clever, what
has she made him? She has given him, steadily, more and more intellect."

"Well, you may be right," I laughed, "though you speak as if it were
cod-liver oil. Does she administer it, as a daily dose, by the spoonful?
or only as a drop at a time? Does he take it in his food? Is he
supposed to know? The difficulty for me is simply that if I've seen the
handsome grow ugly and the ugly handsome, the fat grow thin and the thin
fat, the short grow long and the long short; if I've even, likewise,
seen the clever, as I've too fondly, at least, supposed them, grow
stupid: so have I _not_ seen--no, not once in all my days--the stupid
grow clever."

It was a question, none the less, on which she could perfectly stand up.
"All I can say is then that you'll have, the next day or two, an
interesting new experience."

"It _will_ be interesting," I declared while I thought--"and all the
more if I make out for myself that Lady John _is_ the agent."

"You'll make it out if you talk to her--that is, I mean, if you make
_her_ talk. You'll see how she _can_."

"She keeps her wit then," I asked, "in spite of all she pumps into
others?"

"Oh, she has enough for two!"

"I'm immensely struck with yours," I replied, "as well as with your
generosity. I've seldom seen a woman take so handsome a view of
another."

"It's becaus