le to
begin over again.

(He means every word of it, though the flowers would here, if they
dared, burst into ironical applause.)

MRS. COADE. It is very sad, Mrs. Dearth.

ALICE. I am sorry for him; but still--

MATEY (his eyes turning to LADY CAROLINE). What do you say, my lady?

LADY CAROLINE (briefly). As you ask me, I should certainly say jail.

MATEY (desperately). If you will say no more about this, ma'am--I'll
give you a tip that is worth it.

ALICE. Ah, now you are talking.

LADY CAROLINE. Don't listen to him.

MATEY (lowering). You are the one that is hardest on me.

LADY CAROLINE. Yes, I flatter myself I am.

MATEY (forgetting himself). You might take a wrong turning yourself,
my lady.

LADY CAROLINE, I? How dare you, man.

(But the flowers rather like him for this; it is possibly what gave
them a certain idea.)

JOANNA (near the keyhole of the dining-room door). The men are
rising.

ALICE (hurriedly). Very well, Matey, we agree--if the 'tip' is good
enough.

LADY CAROLINE. You will regret this.

MATEY. I think not, my lady. It's this: I wouldn't go out to-night if
he asks you. Go into the garden, if you like. The garden is all
right. (He really believes this.) I wouldn't go farther--not
to-night.

MRS. COADE. But he never proposes to us to go farther. Why should he
to-night?

MATEY. I don't know, ma'am, but don't any of you go--(devilishly)
except you, my lady; I should like you to go.

LADY CAROLINE. Fellow!

(They consider this odd warning.)

ALICE. Shall I? (They nod and she tears up the telegram.)

MATEY (with a gulp). Thank you, ma'am.

LADY CAROLINE. You should have sent that telegram off.

JOANNA. You are sure you have told us all you know, Matey?

MATEY. Yes, miss. (But at the door he is more generous.) Above all,
ladies, I wouldn't go into the wood.

MABEL. The wood? Why, there is no wood within a dozen miles of here.

MATEY. NO, ma'am. But all the same I wouldn't go into it, ladies--not
if I was you.

(With this cryptic warning he leaves them, and any discussion of it
is prevented by the arrival of their host. LOB is very small, and
probably no one has ever looked so old except some newborn child. To
such as watch him narrowly, as the ladies now do for the first time,
he has the effect of seeming to be hollow, an attenuated piece of
piping insufficiently inflated; one feels that if he were to strike
against a solid object he might rebound feebly from it, whi