"It is a very hasty conclusion," I persisted. "Sometimes I stay
talking with you for an hour or more. Are you, therefore,
flirting with me?"

"With you!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilary, with a little laugh.

"Absurd as the supposition is," I remarked, "it yet serves to
point the argument. Lady Mickleham might have been talking with
a friend, just in the quiet rational way in which we are talking
now."

"I don't think that's likely," said Mrs. Hilary; and--well, I do
not like to say that she sniffed--it would convey too strong an
idea, but she did make an odd little sound something like a much
etherealized sniff.

I smiled again, and more broadly. I was enjoying beforehand the
little victory which I was to enjoy over Mrs. Hilary. "Yet it
happens to be true," said I.

Mrs. Hilary was magnificently contemptuous.

"Lord Mickleham told you so, I suppose?" she asked. "And I
suppose Lady Mickleham told him--poor man!"

"Why do you call him 'poor man'?"

"Oh, never mind. Did he tell you?"

"Certainly not. The fact is, Mrs. Hilary--and really, you must