Gilbert Long stuck to Lady John? Oh yes, I noticed. They were like
Lord Lutley and Mrs. Froome. But is that what one can call being tender
of her?"

My companion weighed it. "He must speak to her _sometimes_. I'm glad you
admit, at any rate," she continued, "that it does take what you so
prettily call some woman's secretly giving him of her best to account
for him."

"Oh, that I admit with all my heart--or at least with all my head. Only,
Lady John has none of the signs----"

"Of being the beneficent woman? What then _are_ they--the signs--to be
so plain?" I was not yet quite ready to say, however; on which she
added: "It proves nothing, you know, that _you_ don't like her."

"No. It would prove more if she didn't like _me_, which--fatuous fool as
you may find me--I verily believe she does. If she hated me it would be,
you see, for my ruthless analysis of her secret. She _has_ no secret.
She would like awfully to have--and she would like almost as much to be
believed to have. Last evening, after dinner, she could feel perhaps for
a while that she _was_ believed. But it won't do. There's nothing in
it. You asked me just now," I pursued, "what the signs of such a secret
would naturally be. Well, bethink yourself a moment of what the secret
itself must naturally be."

Oh, she looked as if she knew all about _that_! "Awfully
charming--mustn't it?--to act upon a person, through an affection, so
deeply."

"Yes--it can certainly be no vulgar flirtation." I felt a little like a
teacher encouraging an apt pupil; but I could only go on with the
lesson. "Whoever she is, she gives all she has. She keeps nothing
back--nothing for herself."

"I see--because _he_ takes everything. He just cleans her out." She
looked at me--pleased at last really to understand--with the best
conscience in the world. "Who _is_ the lady then?"

But I could answer as yet only by a question. "How can she possibly be a
woman who gives absolutely nothing whatever; who scrapes and saves and
hoards; who keeps every crumb for herself? The whole show's there--to
minister to Lady John's vanity and advertise the business--behind her
smart shop-window. You can see it, as much as you like, and even amuse
yourself with pricing it. But she never parts with an article. If poor
Long depended on _her_----"

"Well, what?" She was really interested.

"Why, he'd be the same poor Long as ever. He would go as he used to
go--naked and unashamed. No," I wound up,