found himself staring. "But what has our little friend Nanda
to do with it?"

"What indeed, bless her heart? If you WILL ask questions, however, you
must take, as I say, your risks. There are days when between you all you
stupefy me. One of them was when I happened about a month ago to make
some allusion to the charming example of Mr. Cashmore's fine taste that
we have there before us: what was my surprise at the tone taken by Mrs.
Brook to deny on this little lady's behalf the soft impeachment? It
was quite a mistake that anything had happened--Mrs. Donner had pulled
through unscathed. She had been but a day or two at the most in danger,
for her family and friends--the best influences--had rallied to her
support: the flurry was all over. She was now perfectly safe. Do you
think she looks so?" the Duchess asked.

This was not a point that Mitchy was conscious of freedom of mind to
examine. "Do I understand you that Nanda was her mother's authority--?"

"For the exact shade of the intimacy of the two friends and the state of
Mrs. Brook's information? Precisely--it was 'the latest before going to
press.' 'Our own correspondent'! Her mother quoted her."

Mr. Mitchett visibly wondered. "But how should Nanda know--?"

"Anything about the matter? How should she NOT know everything? You've
not, I suppose, lost sight of the fact that this lady and Mrs. Grendon
are sisters. Carrie's situation and Carrie's perils are naturally very
present to the extremely unoccupied Tishy, who is unhappily married into
the bargain, who has no children, and whose house, as you may imagine,
has a good thick atmosphere of partisanship. So, as with Nanda, on HER
side, there's no more absorbing interest than her dear friend Tishy,
with whom she's at present staying and under whose roof she perpetually
meets this victim of unjust aspersions--!"

"I see the whole thing from here, you imply?" Mr. Mitchett, under the
influence of this rapid evocation, had already taken his line. "Well,"
he said bravely, "Nanda's not a fool."

A momentary silence on the part of the Duchess might have been her
tribute to his courage. "No. I don't agree with her, as it happens,
here; but that there are matters as to which she's not in general at
all befogged is exactly the worst I ever said of her. And I hold that in
putting it so--on the basis of my little anecdote--you clearly give out
that you're answered."

Mitchy turned it over. "Answered?"

"In the quarrel t