"Ah with every precaution of respect!" I declared in a much lower tone.
But her back was by this time turned to me, and in the movement, as it
were, one of the strangest little dramas I've ever known was well
launched.




CHAPTER III


It was a drama of small smothered intensely private things, and I knew of
but one other person in the secret; yet that person and I found it
exquisitely susceptible of notation, followed it with an interest the
mutual communication of which did much for our enjoyment, and were
present with emotion at its touching catastrophe. The small case--for so
small a case--had made a great stride even before my little party
separated, and in fact within the next ten minutes.

In that space of time two things had happened one of which was that I
made the acquaintance of Mrs. Brash; and the other that Mrs. Munden
reached me, cleaving the crowd, with one of her usual pieces of news.
What she had to impart was that, on her having just before asked Nina if
the conditions of our sitting had been arranged with me, Nina had
replied, with something like perversity, that she didn't propose to
arrange them, that the whole affair was "off" again and that she
preferred not to be further beset for the present. The question for Mrs.
Munden was naturally what had happened and whether I understood. Oh I
understood perfectly, and what I at first most understood was that even
when I had brought in the name of Mrs. Brash intelligence wasn't yet in