"I think you'll find," I said, with a laugh, "that your predicament will disappear in the very fact that the philosopher is undiscoverable."
He began to gather up his papers. "Who can set a limit to the ingenuity of an extravagant woman?"
"Yes, after all, who indeed?" I echoed, as I recalled the extravagance commemorated in Mrs. Mulville's anecdote of Miss Anvoy and the thirty pounds.
IX
The thing I had been most sensible of in that talk with George Gravener was the way Saltram's name kept out of it. It seemed to me at the time that we were quite pointedly silent about him; but afterward it appeared more probable there had been on my companion's part no conscious avoidance. Later on I was sure of this, and for the best of reasons the simple reason of my perceiving more completely that, for evil as well as for good, he said nothing to Gravener's imagination. Gravener was not afraid of him; he was too much disgusted with him. No more was I, doubtless, and for very much the same reason. I treated my friend's story as an absolute confidence; but when before Christmas, by Mrs. Saltram, I was informed of Lady Coxon's death without having had news of Miss Anvoy's return, I found myself taking for
