The bishop is a grand and stately ecclesiastic of the mediaeval type, broad-chested, deep-voiced, martial of bearing.  I could picture him charging mace in hand at the head of his vassals, or delivering over a dissenter of the period to the rack and thumbscrew, but not pottering among rare editions, tall copies and Grolier bindings, nor condescending to a quiet cigar among the tree ferns and orchids.  Leta must and should be obeyed, I swore, nevertheless, even if I were driven to lock the door in the fearless old fashion of a bygone day, and declare I’d shoot any man who left while a drop remained in the bottles.

The ladies were rising.  The lady at the head of the line smirked and nodded her pink plumes coquettishly at Tom, while her hawk’s eyes roved keen and predatory over us all.  She stopped suddenly, creating a block and confusion.

“Ah, the dear bishop! You there, and I never saw you!  You must come and have a nice long chat presently.  By-by—!” She shook her fan at him over my shoulder and tripped off.  Leta, passing me last, gave me a look of profound despair.

“Lady Carwitchet!” somebody exclaimed.  “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“Thought she was dead or in penal servitude.  Never should have expected to see her here,” said some one else behind me confidentially.

“What Carwitchet?  Not the mother of the Carwitchet who—­”

“Just so.  The Carwitchet who—­” Tom assented with a shrug.  “We needn’t go farther, as she’s my guest.  Just my luck.  I met them at Buxton, thought them uncommonly good company—­in fact, Carwitchet laid me under a great obligation about a horse I was nearly let in for buying—­and gave them a general invitation here, as one does, you know.  Never expected her to turn up with her luggage this afternoon just before dinner, to stay a week, or a fortnight if Carwitchet can join her.”  A groan of sympathy ran round the table.  “It can’t be helped.  I’ve told you this just to show that I shouldn’t have asked you here to meet this sort of people of my own free will; but, as it is, please say no more about them.”  The subject was not dropped by any means, and I took care that it should not be.  At our end of the table one story after another went buzzing round—­sotto voce, out of deference to Tom—­but perfectly audible.

“Carwitchet?  Ah, yes.  Mixed up in that Rawlings divorce case, wasn’t he?  A bad lot.  Turned out of the Dragoon Guards for cheating at cards, or picking pockets, or something—­remember the row at the Cerulean Club?  Scandalous exposure—­and that forged letter business—­oh, that was the mother—­prosecution hushed up somehow.  Ought to be serving her fourteen years—­and that business of poor Farrars, the banker—­got hold of some of his secrets and blackmailed him till he blew his brains out—­”

It was so exciting that I clean forgot the bishop, till a low gasp at my elbow startled me.  He was lying back in his chair, his mighty shaven jowl a ghastly white, his fierce imperious eyebrows drooping limp over his fishlike eyes, his splendid figure shrunk and contracted.  He was trying with a shaken hand to pour out wine.  The decanter clattered against the glass and the wine spilled on the cloth.