Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/182

 Lady John's amusement took on a breadth—"you may be said to have a prudent mind and to be taking time by the forelock."

At this I pricked up my ears. "Do you mean because of his apparently incorruptible constancy?"

"I mean because the whole thing's so before one. She has him so in hand that they're neither of them in as much danger as would count for a mouse. It doesn't prevent his liking to dally by the way—for she dallies by the way, and he does everything she does. Haven't I observed her," Lady John continued, "dallying a little, so far as that goes, with you? You've the tact to tell me that he doesn't think me good enough, but I don't require, do I?—for such a purpose as his—to be very extraordinarily good. You may say that you wrap it up immensely and try to sugar the dose! Well, all the same, give up, for a quiet life, the attempt to be a providence. You can't be a providence and not be a bore. A real providence knows; whereas you," said Lady John, making her point neatly, "have to find out—and to find out even by asking 'the likes of' me. Your fine speech meanwhile doesn't a bit tell me what."

It affected me again that she could get so near without getting nearer. True enough it was that I wanted to find out; and though I might expect, or fear, too much of her, I wondered at her only 176