we can only bring it out."

"Something in him, indeed, yes, Madam!" I assented, and Cousin Egbert,
turning to me, winked heavily.

"I want him to look like some one," she resumed, "and I think you're
the man can make him if you're firm with him; but you'll have to be
firm, because he's full of tricks. And if he starts any rough stuff,
just come to me."

"Quite so, Madam," I said, but I felt I was blushing with shame at
hearing one of my own sex so slanged by a woman. That sort of thing
would never do with us. And yet there was something about this
woman--something weirdly authoritative. She showed rather well in the
morning light, her gray eyes crackling as she talked. She was wearing
a most elaborate peignoir, and of course she should not have worn the
diamonds; it seemed almost too much like the morning hour of a stage
favourite; but still one felt that when she talked one would do well
to listen.

Hereupon Cousin Egbert startled me once more.

"Won't you set up and have something with us, Mr. Ruggles?" he asked me.

I looked away, affecting not to have heard, and could feel Mrs. Effie
scowling at him. He coughed into his cup and sprayed coffee well over
himself. His intention had been obvious in the main, though exactly
what he had meant by "setting up" I couldn't fancy--as if I had been a
performing poodle!