Costanza wept, but Mrs. Fisher was unmoved.  In slow and splendid Italian, with the roll of the cantos of the Inferno, she informed her that she would pay no bills till the following week, and that meanwhile the food was to be precisely as good as ever, and at a quarter the cost.

Costanza threw up her hands.

Next week, proceeded Mrs. Fisher unmoved, if she found this had been so she would pay the whole.  Otherwise—­she paused; for what she would do otherwise she did not know herself.  But she paused and looked impenetrable, majestic and menacing, and Costanza was cowed.

Then Mrs. Fisher, having dismissed her with a gesture, went in search of Lady Caroline to complain.  She had been under the impression that Lady Caroline ordered the meals and therefore was responsible for the prices, but now it appeared that the cook had been left to do exactly as she pleased ever since they got there, which of course was simply disgraceful.

Scrap was not in her bedroom, but the room, on Mrs. Fisher’s opening the door, for she suspected her of being in it and only pretending not to hear the knock, was still flowerlike from her presence.

“Scent,” sniffed Mrs. Fisher, shutting it again; and she wished Carlyle could have had five minutes’ straight talk with this young woman.  And yet—­perhaps even he—­

She went downstairs to go into the garden in search of her, and in the hall encountered Mr. Wilkins.  He had his hat on, and was lighting a cigar.

Indulgent as Mrs. Fisher felt towards Mr. Wilkins, and peculiarly and even mystically related after the previous morning’s encounter, she yet could not like a cigar in the house.  Out of doors she endured it, but it was not necessary, when out of doors was such a big place, to indulge the habit indoors.  Even Mr. Fisher, who had been, she should say, a man originally tenacious of habits, had quite soon after marriage got out of this one.

However, Mr. Wilkins, snatching off his hat on seeing her, instantly threw the cigar away.  He threw it into the water a great jar of arum lilies presumably contain, and Mrs. Fisher, aware of the value men attach to their newly-lit cigars, could not but be impressed by this immediate and magnificent amende honorable.

But the cigar did not reach the water.  It got caught in the lilies, and smoked on by itself among them, a strange and depraved-looking object.

“Where are you going to, my prett—­” began Mr. Wilkins, advancing towards Mrs. Fisher; but he broke off just in time.

Was it morning spirits impelling him to address Mrs. Fisher in the terms of a nursery rhyme?  He wasn’t even aware that he knew the thing.  Most strange.  What could have put it, at such a moment, into his self-possessed head?  He felt great respect for Mrs. Fisher, and would not for the world have insulted her by addressing her as a maid, pretty or otherwise.  He wished to stand well with her.  She was a