‘Character?’ said Mrs. Malory.  ’I am so sure that it has cost me many a wakeful hour.  You will earn my warmest gratitude if you can do anything.’

’Almost everything will depend on your own energy, and tolerance of our measures.’

‘But we must not do evil that good may come,’ said Mrs. Malory nervously.

‘No evil is contemplated,’ said Merton.  But Mrs. Malory, while consenting, so far, did not seem quite certain that her estimate of ‘evil’ and Merton’s would be identical.

She had suffered poignantly, as may be supposed, before she set the training of a lifetime aside, and consulted a professional expert.  But the urbanity and patience of Merton, with the high and unblemished reputation of his Association, consoled her.  ’We must yield where we innocently may,’ she assured herself, ’to the changes of the times.  Lest one good order’ (and ah, how good the Early Victorian order had been!) ‘should corrupt the world.’  Mrs. Malory knew that line of poetry.  Then she remembered that Mrs. Brown-Smith was on the list of Merton’s references, and that reassured her, more or less.

As for Merton, he evolved a plan in his mind, and consulted Bradshaw’s invaluable Railway Guide.

On the following night Merton was fortunate or adroit enough to find himself seated beside Mrs. Brown-Smith in a conservatory at a party given by the Montenegrin Ambassador.  Other occupants of the fairy-like bower of blossoms, musical with all the singing of the innumerable fountains, could not but know (however preoccupied) that Mrs. Brown-Smith was being amused.  Her laughter ‘rang merry and loud,’ as the poet says, though not a word of her whispered conversation was audible.  Conservatories (in novels) are dangerous places for confidences, but the pale and angry face of Miss Malory did not suddenly emerge from behind a grove of gardenias, and startle the conspirators.  Indeed, Miss Malory was not present; she and her sister had no great share in the elegant frivolities of the metropolis.

‘It all fits in beautifully,’ said Mrs. Brown-Smith.  ’Just let me look at the page of Bradshaw again.’  Merton handed to her a page of closely printed matter. ‘9.17 P.M., 9.50 P.M.’ read Mrs. Brown-Smith aloud; ’it gives plenty of time in case of delays.  Oh, this is too delicious!  You are sure that these trains won’t be altered.  It might be awkward.’

‘I consulted Anson,’ said Merton.  Anson was famous for his mastery of time-tables, and his prescience as to railway arrangements.

‘Of course it depends on the widow,’ said Mrs. Brown-Smith, ’I shall see that Johnnie is up to time.  He hopes to undersell the opposition soap’ (Mr. Brown-Smith was absent in America, in the interests of that soap of his which is familiar to all), ’and he is in the best of humours.  Then their grouse!  We have disease on our moors in Perthshire; I was in despair.  But the widow needs delicate handling.’