Lady Busshe said:  “Well? the news! we have the outlines.  Don’t be astonished:  we know the points:  we have heard the gun.  I could have told you as much yesterday.  I saw it.  And I guessed it the day before.  Oh, I do believe in fatalities now.  Lady Culmer and I agree to take that view:  it is the simplest.  Well, and are you satisfied, my dears?”

The ladies grimaced interrogatively:  “With what?”

“With it? with all! with her! with him!”

“Our Willoughby?”

“Can it be possible that they require a dose of Corney?” Lady Busshe remarked to Lady Culmer.

“They play discretion to perfection,” said Lady Culmer.  “But, my dears, we are in the secret.”

“How did she behave?” whispered Lady Busshe.  “No high flights and flutters, I do hope.  She was well-connected, they say; though I don’t comprehend what they mean by a line of scholars—­one thinks of a row of pinafores:  and she was pretty.”

“That is well enough at the start.  It never will stand against brains.  He had the two in the house to contrast them, and . . . the result!  A young woman with brains—­in a house—­beats all your beauties.  Lady Culmer and I have determined on that view.  He thought her a delightful partner for a dance, and found her rather tiresome at the end of the gallopade.  I saw it yesterday, clear as daylight.  She did not understand him, and he did understand her.  That will be our report.”

“She is young:  she will learn,” said the ladies uneasily, but in total ignorance of her meaning.

“And you are charitable, and always were.  I remember you had a good word for that girl Durham.”

Lady Busshe crossed the room to Mr. Dale, who was turning over leaves of a grand book of the heraldic devices of our great Families.

“Study it,” she said, “study it, my dear Mr. Dale; you are in it, by right of possessing a clever and accomplished daughter.  At page 300 you will find the Patterne crest.  And mark me, she will drag you into the peerage before she has done—­relatively, you know.  Sir Willoughby and wife will not be contented to sit down and manage the estates.  Has not Laetitia immense ambition?  And very creditable, I say.”

Mr. Dale tried to protest something.  He shut the book, examining the binding, flapped the cover with a finger, hoped her ladyship was in good health, alluded to his own and the strangeness of the bird out of the cage.

“You will probably take up your residence here, in a larger and handsomer cage.  Mr. Dale.”

He shook his head.  “Do I apprehend . . .” he said.

“I know,” said she.

“Dear me, can it be?”

Mr. Dale gazed upward, with the feelings of one awakened late to see a world alive in broad daylight.

Lady Busshe dropped her voice.  She took the liberty permitted to her with an inferior in station, while treating him to a tone of familiarity in acknowledgment of his expected rise; which is high breeding, or the exact measurement of social dues.