Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/171

Rh "Of whom," said the girl, intensely attached to this recital, "you're of course seen as not the least."

"Of whom, of course, Lady Grace, I'm as yet—however I'm 'seen'—the whole collection. But we've time"—he rested on that. "The fat, if you'll allow me the expression, is on the fire—which, as I see the matter, is where this particular fat should be."

"Is the article, then," his companion appealed, "very severe?"

"I prefer to call it very enlightened and very intelligent—and the great thing is that it immensely 'marks,' as they say. It will have made a big public difference—from this day; though it's of course aimed not so much at persons as at conditions; which it calls upon us all somehow to tackle."

"Exactly"—she was full of the saving vision; "but as the conditions are directly embodied in persons"

"Oh, of course it here and there bells the cat; which means that it bells three or four."

"Yes," she richly brooded—"Lady Lappington is a cat!"

"She will have been 'belled,' at any rate,