had come to-night out of high curiosity--she had wanted to learn
this proper way for herself. She had read some of his papers and
hadn't understood them; but it was at home, at her aunt's, that her
curiosity had been kindled--kindled mainly by his wife's remarkable
stories of his want of virtue. "I suppose they ought to have kept
me away," my companion dropped, "and I suppose they'd have done so
if I hadn't somehow got an idea that he's fascinating. In fact
Mrs. Saltram herself says he is."

"So you came to see where the fascination resides? Well, you've
seen!"

My young lady raised fine eyebrows. "Do you mean in his bad
faith?"

"In the extraordinary effects of it; his possession, that is, of
some quality or other that condemns us in advance to forgive him
the humiliation, as I may call it, to which he has subjected us."

"The humiliation?"

"Why mine, for instance, as one of his guarantors, before you as
the purchaser of a ticket."

She let her charming gay eyes rest on me. "You don't look
humiliated a bit, and if you did I should let you off, disappointed
as I am; for the mysterious quality you speak of is just the
quality I came to see."

"Oh, you can't 'see' it!" I cried.