“I!  Oh, Maurice!”

“Yes—­you!  Yesterday, as it seems to me, I believed in everyone.  To-day I doubt every soul I meet.”

At this point Hescott’s “doubts,” at all events, seem to be set at rest.  His hand has ceased to wander over the pretty head, and in a low tone he says: 

“Titania!”

This word is meant for Tita alone.  A second later he calls aloud: 

“Lady Rylton!”

But Maurice and Mrs. Bethune, who had been standing just behind him, had heard that whispered first word.

“Oh, you rare right,” says Tita petulantly.  “But you would never have known me but for my hair.  And I hate being blindfolded, too.  Maurice, will you take it for me?” holding out to him the handkerchief.

“No!” says Rylton quietly, but decisively—­so decisively that Mrs. Chichester suddenly hides her face behind her fan.

“What a No!” says she to Captain Marryatt.  “Did you hear it?  What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s jealous, perhaps,” says Captain Marryatt.

Mrs. Chichester gives way to wild, if suppressed, mirth.

“Heavens!  Fancy being jealous of one’s own wife!” says she.  “Now, if it had been anyone else’s——­”

“Yes, there would be reason in that!” says Captain Marryatt, so gloomily that her mirth breaks forth afresh.

He is always a joy to her, this absurd young man, who, in spite of barbs and shafts, follows at her chariot wheels with a determination worthy of a better cause.

Gower, who also had heard that quiet “No,” had come instantly forward, and entreated Tita to blindfold him.  And once more the fun is at its height.  Hescott, as compared with Randal Gower, is not even in it in this game.  The latter simulates the swallow, and even outdoes that wily bird in his swift dartings to and fro.  Great is his surprise, and greater still his courage—­this last is acknowledged by all—­when, on a final swoop round the room with arms extended, he suddenly closes them round the bony form of Miss Gower, who had returned five minutes ago, and who, silent and solitary, is standing in a distant corner breathing anathemas upon the game.

Everyone stops dead short—­everyone looks at the ceiling; surely it must fall!  There had been a general, if unvoiced, opinion up to this that Mr. Gower could see; but now he is at once exonerated, and may leave the dock at any moment without a stain upon his character.

“Come away! come away!” whisper two or three behind his back.

Mrs. Chichester pulls frantically at his coat-tails; but Mr. Gower holds on.  He passes his hand over Miss Gower’s gray head.

“It is—­it is—­it must be!” cries he, in a positive tone.  “It”—­here his hand flies swiftly down her warlike nose—­“it is Colonel Neilson!” declares he, with a shout of triumph.

“Unhand me, sir!” cries Miss Gower.

She had not spoken up to this—­but to compare her to a man!  She moves majestically forward.  Gower unhands her, and, lifting one side of his would-be blind, regards her fixedly.