en. Usually we go the wrong way
to work. And I loathe sentimental rubbish."

De Craye hummed an air. "But the lady?" said he.

"I told you, there seems a likelihood of her consenting."

Willoughby's fish gave a perceptible little leap now that he had been
taught to exercise his aptitude for guessing.

"Without any of the customary preliminaries on the side of the
gentleman?" he said.

"We must put him through his paces, friend Horace. He's a notorious
blunderer with women; hasn't a word for them, never marked a conquest."

De Craye crested his plumes under the agreeable banter. He presented a
face humourously sceptical.

"The lady is positively not indisposed to give the poor fellow a
hearing?"

"I have cause to think she is not," said Willoughby, glad of acting the
indifference to her which could talk of her inclinations.

"Cause?"

"Good cause."

"Bless us!"

"As good as one can have with a woman."

"Ah?"

"I assure you."

"Ah! Does it seem like her, though?"

"Well, she wouldn't engage herself to accept him."

"Well, that seems more like her."

"But she said she could engage to marry no one else."

The colonel sprang up, crying: "Clara Middleton said it?" He curbed
himself "That's a bit of wonderful compliancy."

"She wishes to please me. We separate on those terms. And I wish her
happiness. I've developed a heart lately and taken to think of others."

"Nothing better. You appear to make cock sure of the other party--our
friend?"

"You know him too well, Horace, to doubt his readiness."

"Do you, Willoughby?"

"She has money and good looks. Yes, I can say I do."

"It wouldn't be much of a man who'd want hard pulling to that lighted
altar!"

"And if he requires persuasion, you and I, Horace, might bring him to
his senses."

"Kicking, 't would be!"

"I like to see everybody happy about me," said Willoughby, naming the
hour as time to dress for dinner.

The sentiment he had delivered was De Craye's excuse for grasping his
hand and complimenting him; but the colonel betrayed himself by doing
it with an extreme fervour almost tremulous.

"When shall we hear more?" he said.

"Oh, probably to-morrow," said Willoughby. "Don't be in such a hurry."

"I'm an infant asleep!" the colonel replied, departing.

He resembled one, to Willoughby's mind: or a traitor drugged.

"There is a fellow I thought had some brains!"

Who are not fools to beset spinning if we choose to whip them with