o recover my good humour.
"It's not in the least to your observation that I object, it's to the
extravagant inferences you draw from it. Of course, however, I admit I
always want to protect the innocent. What does she gain, on your theory,
by her rushing and pouncing? Had she pounced on Brissenden when we met
him with her? Are you so very sure he hadn't pounced on _her_? They had,
at all events, to me, quite the air of people settled; she was not, it
was clear, at that moment meditating a change. It was we, if you
remember, who had absolutely to pull them apart."

"Is it your idea to make out," Mrs. Brissenden inquired in answer to
this, "that she has suddenly had the happy thought of a passion for my
husband?"

A new possibility, as she spoke, came to me with a whirr of wings, and I
half expressed it. "She may have a sympathy."

My interlocutress gazed at space. "You mean she may be sorry for him? On
what ground?"

I had gone too far indeed; but I got off as I could. "You neglect him
so! But what is she, at any rate," I went on, "nervous--as nervous as
you describe her--_about_?"

"About her danger; the contingency of its being fixed upon them--an
intimacy so thoroughgoing that they can scarcely afford to let it be
seen even as a mere acquaintance. Think of the circumstances--_her_
personal ones, I mean, and admit that it wouldn't do. It would be too
bad a case. There's everything to make it so. They must live on pins and
needles. Anything proved would go tremendously hard for her."

"In spite of which you're surprised that I 'protect' her?"

It was a question, however, that my companion could meet. "From people
in general, no. From me in particular, yes."

In justice to Mrs. Brissenden I thought a moment. "Well, then, let us be
fair all round. That you don't, as you say, breathe is a discretion I
appreciate; all the more that a little inquiry, tactfully pursued, would
enable you to judge whether any independent suspicion does attach. A
little loose collateral evidence _might_ be picked up; and your scorning
to handle it is no more than I should, after all, have expected of you."

"Thank you for 'after all'!" My companion tossed her head. "I know for
myself what I scorn to handle. Quite apart from that there's another
matter. You must have noticed yourself that when people are so much
liked----"

"There's a kind of general, amiable consensus of blindness? Yes--one can
think of cases. Popularity shelters and