Poor Colonel Neilson! who is beginning to wish that the earth would open and swallow him up.

“It argues ill for you that you should be obliged to ask such a question,” says Miss Gower, with a lowering eye.

“Does it?  How dreadful!” says Mrs. Chichester.  She looks immensely amused.  “Do you know I heard the other day that he was married again!  It can’t be true—­can it?”

She appeals once again to Colonel Neilson, as if enjoying his discomfiture, and being willing to add to it through pure mischief.  However, she is disappointed this time.  Colonel Neilson does not know what to do with her appeal to him, and remains discreetly silent.  He can see she is not in earnest.

“At all events, if true,” says Mrs. Chichester, looking now at Miss Gower, and speaking in a confidential tone, “I am sure John will let me know about it.”

“John” is Major Chichester.

Marryatt is leaning now so far over her that he is whispering in her ear.

“Is this—­is this true?” questions he, in low but vehement tones.

“It—­it may be.  Who can tell?” returns she, with beautiful hesitation.

She subsides once again behind the invaluable fan.  To him she seems to be trembling.  To Margaret, who is watching her angrily, she seems to be laughing.

“You have evidently great faith in your husband,” says Miss Gower, with what she fondly believes to be the most artful sarcasm.

“Oh, I have—­I have!” says Mrs. Chichester, clasping her hands in an enthusiastic fashion.

“And he in you, doubtless?”

“Oh, such faith!” with a considerable increase in the enthusiasm.

Miss Gower looks at her over her spectacles.  It is an awful look.

“I shall pray for you to-night!” says she, in a piously vindictive tone.

“Oh, thanks!  Thanks!  How kind of you!” says Mrs. Chichester, with extreme pathos.

There is an explosion on her left.  Mrs. Chichester looks mournfully in that direction to see the cause of it.  There is only Mr. Gower to be seen!  He, as usual, is misconducting himself to quite a remarkable degree.  He is now, in fact, laughing so hard but so silently that the tears are running down his cheeks.  To laugh out loud with his aunt listening, might mean the loss of seven hundred a year to him.

“What’s the matter with you?  Aren’t you well?” asks Mrs. Chichester, in a loud voice, calculated to draw attention to him.

She feels that here is an opportunity given her to pay off old scores.

“Oh, don’t,” gasps Gower, frantically struggling still with his laughter.  “If she hears you, she’ll be down on me like a shot.  As you are strong, be merciful!”

“Very well; remember you are in my debt,” says she, who au fond is not ill-natured.  At this moment Tita passes down the balcony to where her husband is standing on the top of the steps that lead to the gardens beneath.