“Anyone but me!" says Mr. Gower, with an exalted air.  “I was up early this morning to——­”

“Up early!  I like that!  When were you up?” asks Mrs. Chichester, between whom and Randal there is always a living feud.  “Why, you can’t get up even on Sundays, I hear, to be in time for service!”

“What it is to be clever!” says Mr. Gower, looking at her with enthusiastic admiration.  “One hears so much"—­pause—­“that isn’t true!”

“That’s a mere put off,” says she.  “When were you up this morning?  Come now—­honour bright!”

“At shriek of day,” says Gower with dignity.  “Were you ever up at that time?”

“Never!” says Mrs. Chichester, laughing.

She has evidently that best of all things—­a sense of humour; she gives in.

“Well, I was.  I wish I hadn’t been,” says Mr. Gower.  “When I opened my window the rain beat upon me so hard that I felt it was a sort of second edition kind of thing when I took my bath later on.”

“I’m so sorry the weather is turning out so horrid,” says Tita.

“I don’t see why you should ever be sorry about anything,” says Tom Hescott, in his slow, musical voice.

“Don’t you?” She turns to him in a little quick way—­a way that brings her back to that hateful window down below there.  “You are right,” she laughs gaily.  It seems as if she had really cast that window and its occupants behind her for ever.  “Well, I won’t be.  By-the-by, I told you all that we are to go to a dance at Lady Warbeck’s on Thursday week?  Thursday!—­yes.  Thursday week.”

“I remember!  How delightful!” cries Mrs. Chichester.

“Lady Warbeck!  I know her,” says Gower; “she has a son!”

“Yes—­a son.”

“Oh, do go on!  Lady Rylton, do tell us about him,” says Mrs.
Chichester, who is ever in search of fresh fields and pastures new.

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW TITA SUGGESTS A GAME OF BLIND MAN’S BUFF, AND WHAT COMES OF IT.

“Well, I hardly can,” says Tita, struggling with her memory.  “He seems a big man, with—­airs, you know, and—­and——­”

“Trousers!” puts in Mr. Gower.  “I assure you,” looking confidently around him, “the checks on his trousers are so loud, that one can hear him rattle as he walks.”

“Oh! is that the Mr. Warbeck?” says Minnie.  “I know; I met him in town last July.”

“You met a hero of romance, then,” says Gower.  “That is, a thing out of the common.”

“I know him too,” says Mrs. Chichester, who has been thinking.  “A big man, a sort of giant?”

“A horrid man!” says Tita.

Mrs. Chichester looks at her as if amused.

“Why horrid?” asks she.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Tita, shrugging her shoulders.  “I didn’t like him, anyway.”

“I’m sure I’m not surprised,” says Tom Hescott.