This heaviness had grown for him through the long sweet summer day, and there was something in his at last finding himself ensconced with the Duchess that made it supremely oppressive.

The contact was one that, none the less, he would not have availed himself of a decent pretext to avoid.

With so many fine mysteries playing about him there was relief, at the point he had reached, rather than alarm, in the thought of knowing the worst; which it pressed upon him somehow that the Duchess must not only altogether know but must in any relation quite naturally communicate.

It fluttered him rather that a person who had an understanding with Lord Petherton should so single him out as to wish for one also with himself; such a person must either have great variety of mind or have a wonderful idea of HIS variety.

It was true indeed that Mr.Mitchett must have the most extraordinary understanding, and yet with Mr.Mitchett he now found himself quite pleasantly at his ease.