"Mrs. Bailey said Lord have mercy, gracious-goodness-her, and I at once perceived that I was in the hands of a good creature. I must have done so, because I exhorted her to act in her official capacity. When she said:—'Why ever now, when the sun's a-shining fit to brile the house up!' I said to her—to remove ambiguity, you see—'Do be a good creature and tell me, is the room light or dark? She replied in a form of affidavit:—'So help me, Mr. Torrens, if this was the last Bible word I was to speak, this room is light, not dark, nor yet it won't be, not till this blessed evening when there come candles or the lamp, as preferred.' I had a sickening perplexity for a while whether I was sane or mad, awake or dreaming, lying there with my heart adding to my embarrassment needlessly by beating in a hurry. Then I remember how it came to me all at once—the whole meaning of it. Till now, blind men had been other people. Now I was to be one myself.... Say something!... I don't like my own voice speaking alone.... there is no one else in the room, is there?"
"Not a soul. And nobody will come. The dowager-duchess is having tea in her own room, and all the others will be late."
Something in this caused Mr. Torrens to say, with ridiculous inconsecutiveness:—"Then you're not engaged to Lord Cumberworld?"
"I certainly am not engaged to Lord Cumberworld," said Gwen with cold emphasis. "Why did you think I was?"
"Mrs. Bailey."
"Mrs. Bailey! And why did you think I wasn't?"
"That requires thought. I don't quite see, now I come to think of it, why a lady shouldn't be engaged to a party and speak about his grandma as...."
"As I spoke of his just now? Why not, indeed? She is a dowager-duchess."
"I admit it. But there are ways and ways of calling people dowager-duchesses. It struck me that your way suggested that there was something ridiculous about ... about dowadging."
"So there is—to me. I believe it arose from the newspaper saying, when we had a ball in London for me to come out, that the Dowager Lady Scamander had a magnificent diamond stomacher. Perhaps you don't happen to know the shape of that good lady?... Never mind. Anyhow, I am not engaged to this one's grandson; and she's safe in the west wing, where the ghost never goes. We've got it all to ourselves. Go on!"