Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady her
muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control when,
dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she remarked to
Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: "I suppose I ought to say good
morning."

If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the vaguest
sense of what was expected of her in return. There was something
unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's composure, and she had to
force the light tone in which she answered: "I tried to see you this
morning, but you were not yet up."

"No--I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station I thought we
ought to wait for you till the last train." She spoke very gently, but
with just the least tinge of reproach.

"You missed us? You waited for us at the station?" Now indeed Lily was
too far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other's words or keep watch
on her own. "But I thought you didn't get to the station till after the
last train had left!"

Mrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with the
immediate query: "Who told you that?"

"George--I saw him just now in the gardens."

"Ah, is that George's version? Poor George--he was in no state to
remember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this morning,
and I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if he found him?"

Lily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset settled
herself indolently in her seat. "He'll wait to see him; he was horribly
frightened about himself. It's very bad for him to be worried, and
whenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings on an attack."

This time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her; but it was
put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so incredible an air
of ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter out doubtfully:
"Anything upsetting?"

"Yes--such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the small
hours. You know, my dear, you're rather a big responsibility in such a
scandalous place after midnight."

At that--at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable audacity of
it--Lily could not restrain the tribute of an astonished laugh.

"Well, really--considering it was you who burdened him with the
responsibility!"

Mrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. "By not having the
superhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush for the