ld not but recognise her distress. He realised that it had
followed hard upon her most generous intention towards himself. He could
not, therefore, do less than try to comfort her, and he began his task in
a conventional way, but with a blundering awkwardness which was all
manlike. He took her hand and held it in his; this much at any rate he
had learned in sitting on stairs or in conservatories after extra dances.
He said as tenderly as he could, but with an impatient gesture unseen by
her:

'Forgive me, Stephen! I suppose I have said or done something which I
shouldn't. But I don't know what it is; upon my honour I don't. Anyhow,
I am truly sorry for it. Cheer up, old girl! I'm not your husband, you
know; so you needn't be distressed.'

Stephen took her courage _a deux mains_. If Leonard would not speak she
must. It was manifestly impossible that the matter could be left in its
present state.

'Leonard,' she said softly and solemnly, 'might not that some day be?'

Leonard, in addition to being an egotist and the very incarnation of
selfishness, was a prig of the first water. He had been reared
altogether in convention. Home life and Eton and Christchurch had taught
him many things, wise as well as foolish; but had tended to fix his
conviction that affairs of the heart should proceed on adamantine lines
of conventional decorum. It never even occurred to him that a lady could
so far step from the confines of convention as to take the initiative in
a matter of affection. In his blind ignorance he blundered brutally. He
struck better than he knew, as, meaning only to pass safely by an awkward
conversational corner, he replied:

'No jolly fear of that! You're too much of a boss for me!' The words
and the levity with which they were spoken struck the girl as with a
whip. She turned for an instant as pale as ashes; then the red blood
rushed from her heart, and face and neck were dyed crimson. It was not a
blush, it was a suffusion. In his ignorance Leonard thought it was the
former, and went on with what he considered his teasing.

'Oh yes! You know you always want to engineer a chap your own way and
make him do just as you wish. The man who has the happiness of marrying
you, Stephen, will have a hard row to hoe!' His 'chaff' with its utter
want of refinement seemed to her, in her high-strung earnest condition,
nothing short of brutal, and for a few seconds produced a feeling of
repellence. But