The Seclusion of the Old Lady
most serves them right for holding such silly views, after all," and he quaked again with amusement; "there's something confoundedly Darwinian about it."
"I suppose you mean to help us?" said Rupert.
"Oh yes, I'll be in it," answered Basil, "if it's only to prevent your doing the poor chaps any harm."
He was standing in the rear of our little procession, looking indifferent and sometimes even sulky, but somehow the instant the door opened he stepped first into the hall, glowing with urbanity.
"So sorry to haunt you like this," he said. "I met two friends outside who very much want to know you. May I bring them in?"
"Delighted, of course," said a young voice, the unmistakable voice of the Isis, and I realized that the door had been opened, not by the decorous little servant girl, but by one of our hosts in person. He was a short but shapely young gentleman, with curly, dark hair and a square, snub-nosed
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