yet been risked. I remember," he continued, "Mrs.
Brook's having spoken of her to me lately as 'wild.' Wild?--why, she's
simply tameness run to seed. Such an expression shows the state of
training to which Mrs. Brook has reduced the rest of us."

"It doesn't prevent at any rate, Mrs. Brook's training, some of the rest
of you from being horrible," the Duchess declared. "What did you mean
just now, really, by asking me to explain before Aggie this so serious
matter of Nanda's exposure?" Then instantly taking herself up before Mr.
Mitchett could answer: "What on earth do you suppose Edward's saying to
my darling?"

Brookenham had placed himself, side by side with the child, on a distant
little settee, but it was impossible to make out from the countenance of
either if a sound had passed between them. Aggie's little manner was too
developed to show, and her host's not developed enough. "Oh he's awfully
careful," Lord Petherton reassuringly observed. "If you or I or
Mitchy say anything bad it's sure to be before we know it and without
particularly meaning it. But old Edward means it--"

"So much that as a general thing he doesn't dare to say it?" the Duchess
asked. "That's a pretty picture of him, inasmuch as for the most part he
never speaks. What therefore must he mean?"

"He's an abyss--he's magnificent!" Mr. Mitchett laughed. "I don't know
a man of an understanding more profound, and he's equally incapable of
uttering and of wincing. If by the same token I'm 'horrible,' as you
call me," he pursued, "it's only because I'm in everyway so beastly
superficial. All the same I do sometimes go into things, and I insist
on knowing," he again broke out, "what it exactly was you had in mind in
saying to Mrs. Brook the things about Nanda and myself that she repeated
to me."

"You 'insist,' you silly man?"--the Duchess had veered a little to
indulgence. "Pray on what ground of right, in such a connexion, do you
do anything of the sort?"

Poor Mitchy showed but for a moment that he felt pulled up. "Do you mean
that when a girl liked by a fellow likes him so little in return--?"

"I don't mean anything," said the Duchess, "that may provoke you to
suppose me vulgar and odious enough to try to put you out of conceit of
a most interesting and unfortunate creature; and I don't quite as yet
see--though I dare say I shall soon make out!--what our friend has
in her head in tattling to you on these matters as soon as my back's
turned