ed them leisurely, hat in
hand, wondering why people couldn't live on the ground-floor, and not
a little absorbed in preparation of such a plausible tale as should
bring the contemplated interview to a warlike termination.

Turning imaginary periods with certain grandiloquent phrases
concerning delicacy of feeling and high sense of honour, he arrived at
the second landing, where he paused to take breath. Tom's illness had
no doubt weakened his condition, but the gasp with which he now opened
his mouth denoted excess of astonishment rather than deficiency of
wind.

Spinning deftly into its place, as if dropped from heaven with a
plumb-line, a wreath of artificial flowers landed lightly on his
temples, while a woman's laugh, soft and silvery, accompanied with its
pleasant music this unexpected coronation.

Tom looked up aghast, but he was not quick enough to catch sight of
more than the hem of a garment, the turn of an ankle. There was a
smothered exclamation, a "my gracious!" denoting extremity of dismay,
a rustle of skirts, the loud bang of a door, and all became still.
"Deuced odd," thought Tom, removing the wreath and wondering where
he should put it, before he made his entrance. "Queer sort of
people these! Painter a regular Don Giovanni, no doubt. So much the
better--all the more likely to go in for the fuss and _eclat_ of a
duel."

So Tom flung his garland aside and prepared to assume a lofty presence
with his hand on the painting-room door, while Nina, blushing to
the roots of her hair, barricaded herself carefully into a small
dressing-closet opening on the studio, in which retreat it was Simon's
habit to wash his hands and smarten himself up when he had done work
for the day.

Poor Nina! To use her own expression, she was "horrified." She expected
Dick Stanmore, and with a girlish playfulness sufficiently denoting the
terms on which they stood, had been lying in wait at the top of the
stairs, preparing to take a good shot, and drop the wreath, one of
Simon's faded properties, on that head which she now loved better than
all the world besides.

The staircase, I have said, was gloomy. Young gentlemen all brush
their hair the same way. The missile was out of her fingers ere a
horrid suspicion crossed her that she had made a mistake; and when Tom
looked up there was nothing for it but _sauve qui peut!_ After all,
one head, perhaps, also, one heart, is very like another; but Nina had
not yet mastered this, t