answered, "and you won't do that. I tell you plainly that I find my
account in unsettled states, and that I am unsettling them. Everywhere.
You will see."

She spoke with her monstrous dispassionateness, and I felt a shiver pass
down my spine, very distinctly. I was thinking what she might do if ever
she became in earnest, and if ever I chanced to stand in her way--as her
husband, for example.

"I wish you would talk sense--for one blessed minute," I said; "I want
to get things a little settled in my mind."

"Oh, I'll talk sense," she said, "by the hour, but you won't listen.
Take your friend, Churchill, now. He's the man that we're going to bring
down. I mentioned it to you, and so...."

"But this is sheer madness," I answered.

"Oh, no, it's a bald statement of fact," she went on.

"I don't see how," I said, involuntarily.

"Your article in the _Hour_ will help. Every trifle will help," she
said. "Things that you understand and others that you cannot.... He is
identifying himself with the Duc de Mersch. That looks nothing, but it's
fatal. There will be friendships ... and desertions."

"Ah!" I said. I had had an inkling of this, and it made me respect her
insight into home politics. She must have been alluding to Gurnard, whom
everybody--perhaps from fear--pretended to trust. She looked at me and