Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features.  For one sharp instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair witch.  She sat upright.

“Married!  But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of it?”

“I daresay you haven’t,” said Algernon; “and not likely to.  Ned’s the closest fellow of my acquaintance.  He hasn’t taken me into his confidence, you maybe sure; he knows I’m too leaky.  There’s no bore like a secret!  I’ve come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together a lot of little incidents and adding them up.  First, I believe he was at the Bank when that fair girl was seen there.  Secondly, from the description the fellows give of her, I should take her to be the original of the portrait.  Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who has run for it.  And last, Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say she’s away to the Continent and is married.  Ned’s in Paris.  Those are my facts, and I give you my reckoning of them.”

Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment.

“Impossible,” she exclaimed.  “Edward has more brains than heart.”  And now the lady’s face was scarlet.  “How did this Rhoda, with her absurd name, think of meeting you to tell you such stuff?  Indeed, there’s a simplicity in some of these young women—­” She said the remainder to herself.

“She’s really very innocent and good,” Algernon defended Rhoda. “she is.  There isn’t a particle of nonsense in her.  I first met her in town, as I stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday.”

“You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!” said Mrs. Lovell.

Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness.  “I fancy there’s no doubt her sister has written to her that she’s married.  It’s certain she has.  She’s a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister or a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it.  In that case, she wouldn’t stick at much.”

“But, do you know,” said Mrs. Lovell—­“do you know that Edward’s father would be worse than yours over such an act of folly?  He would call it an offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it.  He would be vindictive on principle.  This story of yours cannot be true.  Nothing reconciles it.”

“Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason,” Algernon assented.  “It mayn’t be true.  I hope it isn’t.  But Ned has a madness for fair women.  He’d do anything on earth for them.  He loses his head entirely.”

“That he may have been imprudent—­” Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly hinted at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl.

“Oh, it needn’t be true,” said Algernon; and with meaning, “Who’s to blame if it is?”

Mrs. Lovell again reddened.  She touched Algernon’s fingers.