"What was that you were saying to Norbury, papa dear?" Gwen asked this question of her father in his own room, half an hour later, having followed him thither for a farewell chat.
"Saying at lunch?" asked the Earl, partly to avoid distraction from the mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider his answer.
"Oh, Norbury! Well!—we were speaking of the same thing as you and your mother, I believe. Only it was not so very clear what that was. You didn't precisely ... formulate."
"Dear good papa! As if everything was an Act of Parliament! What did Norbury say?"
"I only remember the upshot. Miss Lutwyche has a rather uncertain temper, and Mrs. Masham has been accustomed to be consulted."
"Well—and then?"
"That's all I can recollect. It's a very extraordinary thing that it should be so, but I have certainly somehow formed an image in my mind of all my much too numerous retinue of servants taking sides with Masham and Miss Lutwyche respectively, in connection with this old lady of yours, who must be a great curiosity, and whom, by the way, I haven't seen yet." He compared his watch with a clock on the chimney-piece, whose slow pendulum said—so he alleged—"I, am, right, you, are, wrong!" all day.
"Suppose you were to come round and see her now!"
"Should I have time? Yes, I think I should. Just time to smoke this in peace and quiet, and then we'll pay her a visit. Mustn't be a long one."