But Aggie isn't exposed to anything--never has been and never is to be; and we're watching to see if the Duchess can carry it through." "Why not," asked Mr.Cashmore, "if there's nothing she CAN be exposed to but the Duchess herself ?" He had appealed to his companions impartially, but Mr.Longdon, whose attention was now all for his hostess, appeared unconscious.

"If you're all watching is it your idea that I should watch WITH you ?" The enquiry, on his lips, was a waft of cold air, the sense of which clearly led Mrs.Brook to put her invitation on the right ground.

"Not of course on the chance of anything's happening to the dear child--to whom nothing obviously CAN happen but that her aunt will marry her off in the shortest possible time and in the best possible conditions.

No, the interest is much more in the way the Duchess herself steers." "Ah, she's in a boat," Mr.Cashmore fully concurred, "that will take a good bit of that." It is not for Mr.Longdon's historian to overlook that if he was, not unnaturally, mystified he was yet also visibly interested.

"What boat is she in ?" He had addressed his curiosity, with politeness, to Mr.Cashmore, but they were all arrested by the wonderful way in which Mrs.Brook managed to smile at once very dimly, very darkly, and yet make it take them all in.