g the context, and said instead:--"I could
leave your book." Something depended on the lady's answer to this. So
she paused, and worded it:--"By all means bring it, if you prefer doing
so," instead of:--"You needn't take any trouble about returning the
book."

Only the closest analysis can be even with the contingencies of some
stages in the relativities of grown-ups, however easily one sees through
the common human girl and boy. Miss Dickenson's selected answer just
saved the situation by the skin of its teeth. For there certainly was a
situation of a sort. Nobody was falling in love with anybody, that saw
itself; but for all that a fatality dictated that Mr. Pellew and Aunt
Constance were in each other's pockets more often than not. Neither had
any wish to come out, and popular observation supplied the language the
story has borrowed to describe the fact.

The occupant of Mr. Pellew's pocket was, however, dissatisfied with her
answer about the book. Her tenancy might easily become precarious. She
felt that the maintenance of Cavendish Square, as a subject of
conversation, would soften asperities and dispel misunderstandings, if
any. So, instead of truncating the subject of the book-return, she
interwove it with the interesting mansion of Sister Nora's family,
referring especially to the causes of her own visit to it. "Gwen and
Cousin Clo, as she calls her, very kindly asked me to go there if I came
to London; and I suppose I shall, if my sister Georgie and her husband
are not at Roehampton. Anyway, even if I am not there, I am sure they
will be delighted to see you.... Oh no!--Roehampton's much too far to
come with it, and I can easily call for it." This was most ingenious,
for it requested Mr. Pellew to make his call a definite visit, while
depersonalising that visit by a hint at her own possible absence. This
uncertainty also gave latitude of speech, her hypothetical presence
warranting an attitude which would almost have implied too warm a
welcome from a certainty. She even could go so far as to add:--"However,
I should like to show you the Prince's drawing-room--they call it so
because he got drunk there; it's such an honour, you see!--so I hope I
shall be there."

"Doosid int'ristin'--shall certainly come! Gwen's to go to London to get
poor Torrens out of her head--that's the game, isn't it?"

"That sort of thing, I believe. Change of scene and so on." Miss
Dickenson spoke as one saturated with experience of