me with a loyal and self-oblivious devotion.
And then, in those sad hours of vain remembrance, every unkind word that
you have spoken, all the coldness and cruelty which have pierced my
patient breast, will return to torture yours. Be warned in time,
Clarice, and make it easy for me while you have the chance."

"Robert, if you have a talent, it is for shirking a subject you are
afraid of. When you go off like this, I know you are hiding something
from me. What is it this time?"

I saw things were getting serious. She was bound to get it out of me,
and I might as well give in. "Princess, I will confess, and throw myself
on your mercy. Strike, but hear me. It won't pay you to be cross now,
for you've got to be with me till you conclude to take Hartman up; we
can't be quarrelling all the time, you know. He asked me about you this
morning; Jane had spoken of you at breakfast. I put him off with general
remarks about your being down south last winter, and the like of that;
then suddenly my brain slipped--it _is_ softening, you see--and I said
you had come back when I was in the woods with him. That started him,
and he recalled your notion of going up there."

"You are sure you didn't mention it yourself? What did he say?"

"Merely that he wished I had let you and Jane come. He likes Jane. Upon
my honor now, he had no suspicion of anything."

"You goose, how often have I told you there was nothing to suspect? But
men are so coarse. Well, is that all? What else are you trying to
conceal?"

"On my soul, Princess, that's all. I explained it all right, and he was
commencing to berate me for not preparing him to meet you as well as the
others, when we suddenly came on you, and you struck him deaf and dumb
and blind. He swore at me under his breath just before I introduced
him." Here my feelings overcame me again.

"Well, there's no harm done. But you really must be more careful, Bob.
Try and make your poor mind work better while it lasts; don't forget my
instructions again, and when you have made a blunder, tell me at once.
You are so light, so devoted to your frivolous amusements; you seem to
be drifting into second childhood, thirty years too soon. If you had an
object, now, a serious purpose in life: if you really cared for
anything--even for me!"

She cuts me when she talks like that. "Clarice, my regard for you is so
undemonstrative that you fail to appreciate its depth. If I were to make
a fuss over it, now, and use