Good sentences these, and well pronounced. With them, conversation
seemed to languish. The processional pair moved across the shadowy court
in entire silence. The benevolent lady led, never so securely entrenched
in the victorious order, the beloved of prodigal Hugo Canning, to whom
no harm should befall. After her proceeded the slum doctor: the hard
marble betrayed the inequality of his footsteps. A minute more and they
would be upstairs, swallowed and dispersed in the publicity of the
meeting. Floor and ceiling above them brought down the sounds of a
company near at hand, the scraping of a chair-leg, the muffled echo of
voices. Carlisle's foot trod upon the bottom step of the broad stairway.

"I wonder if you would give me five minutes after the meeting, Miss
Heth?" said the young man's voice behind her. "There's a--a matter I've
wanted very much to speak to you about."

Cally's heart seemed to jump a little.

"What is it that you want to speak to me about?" she asked coolly, not
turning. And, to her own surprise, she brought her other foot up on
the stair.

"Well, it concerns the Works," said Vivian.

And he added at once, hastily: "Oh, nothing that you need object to at
all, I hope. Not at all...."

She had stopped short at the fighting-word, and turned, pink-cheeked.
Certes, there was a point at which _noblesse oblige_ becomes mere flabby
spinelessness.