Mr. Ash was still. Mrs. Clive took up the parable instead.
"Lily! I'm amazed at you!"
"My dear aunt, why are you amazed?"
"I never thought a niece of mine could have acted so."
Miss Truscott sighed.
"It seems to me that of late I'm always doing wrong. I don't know how it is. I think I had better go into the garden all alone."
She gave a half-step towards the window. Mr. Ash cleared his throat with rather a suspicious "hem!"
"It won't do, Lily. I know your genius for turning serious questions upside down, but I ask you to put it to your conscience if, on the present occasion, that is fair. A matter which affects the lives of a man and of a woman ought to be approached with gravity at least."
"Is the woman me?" She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. "Oughtn't that to be--Is the woman I?" Then she broke into a smile. "What can you expect when even the elementary rules of grammar are not there?"
So far Mr. Ely had kept a judicious, if not a judicial, silence. But when he saw that Miss Truscott was smiling at Mr. Ash, and more than suspected that Mr. Ash was smiling back at her, he felt that it was time for him to speak.