‘Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she was in the next one talking to him.’

‘Which? How? Explain.’

‘You know what I mean—The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear every word, and we listened shamelessly—’specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that woman!’

‘This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened?’

‘One moment. Ah—h! Blessed relief. I’ve been looking forward to taking them off for the last half-hour—which is ominous at my time of life. But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than ever. She drops her final g’s like a barmaid or a blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. ‘‘Look he-ere, you’re gettin’ too fond o’ me,” she said, and The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, ‘‘Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an aw-ful liar?” I nearly exploded while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told her he was a married man.’

‘I said he wouldn’t.’

‘And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy, and grew quite motherly. ‘‘Now you’ve got a nice little wife of your own—you have,” she said. ‘‘She’s ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I’ve been thinkin’ about it a good deal, and I think you’re a liar.” Wasn’t that delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy suggested that he should burst in and beat him. His voice runs up into an impassioned squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an extraordinary woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might not have objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and this she repeated twice. She wound up her drawl with: ‘‘An’ I’m tellin’ you this because your wife is angry with me, an’ I hate quarrellin’ with any other woman, an’ I like your wife. You know how you have behaved for the last six weeks. You shouldn’t have done it, indeed you shouldn’t. You’re too old an’ too fat.” Can’t you imagine how The Dancing Master would wince at that! ‘‘Now go away,” she said. ‘‘I don’t want to tell you what I think of you, because I think you are not nice. I’ll stay he-ere till the next dance begins.” Did you think that the creature had so much in her?’

‘I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What happened?’

‘The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in the end, he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel. He looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love that woman—in spite of her clothes. And now I’m going to bed. What do you think of it?’

‘I shan’t begin to think till the morning,’ said Mrs. Mallowe, yawning. ‘Perhaps she spoke the truth. They do fly into it by accident sometimes.’

Mrs. Hauksbee’s account of her eavesdropping was an ornate one, but truthful in the main. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. ‘Shady’ Delville had turned upon Mr. Bent and rent him limb from limb, casting him away limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew the light of her eyes from him permanently. Being a man of resource, and anything but pleased in that he had been called both old and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that he had, during her absence in the Doon, been the victim of unceasing persecution at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale so often and with such eloquence that he ended in believing it, while his wife marvelled at the manners and customs of ‘some women.’ When the situation showed signs of languishing, Mrs. Waddy was always on hand to wake the smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent’s bosom and to contribute generally to the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr. Bent’s life