and. Of course, it's _because_ she is in love with him that
she is going in for ... what did you call it?..."

"A self-denying ordinance."

"_I_ call it heroics. If she wasn't in love with him, do you suppose she
would want to fling herself away?"

"Then it isn't a self-denying ordinance at all. I confess I _don't_
understand. I must talk to Gwen herself."

"Oh, talk to her by all means. But don't expect to make any impression
on her. I know what she is when she gets the bit in her teeth. Certainly
talk to her. I really must go and dress now...."

"Stop one minute, Philippa...."

"Well--what?"

"Apart from the blindness--poor fellow!--is there anything about this
young man to object to? There's nothing about his family. Why!--his
father's Hamilton Torrens, that was George's great friend at Christ
Church. And his mother was an Abercrombie...."

"I can't go into that now." Her ladyship cuts Adrian's family very
short. Consider her memories of bygones! No wonder she became acutely
alive to her duties as a hostess. She had created a precedent in this
matter, though really her husband scarcely knew anything about her
_affaire de coeur_ with Adrian's father thirty years ago. It was not a
hanging matter, but she could not object to the young man's family after
such a definite attitude towards his father.

Here ends the second short colloquy, which was the one that caused the
Earl to be so more than usually absent that evening. It had the opposite
effect on her ladyship, who felt better after it; braced up again to
company-manners after the first one. Gwen, as mentioned before, was
dazzling; superb; what is apt to be called a cynosure, owing to
something Milton said. Nevertheless, the Shrewd Observer, who happened
in this case to be Aunt Constance, noticed that at intervals the young
lady let her right-hand neighbour talk, and died away into
preoccupation, with a vital undercurrent of rippled lip and thoughtful
eye. Another of her shrewd observations was that when the Hon. Percival,
referring to Mr. Torrens, still an absentee by choice, said:--"I tried
again to persuade him to come down at feeding-time, but it was no go,"
Gwen came suddenly out of one dream of this sort to say from her end of
the table, miles off:--"He really prefers dining by himself, I know,"
and went in again.

It was this that Aunt Constance referred to in conversation with Mr.
Pellew, at about half-past ten o'clock in that same shrubbery walk.