no scar or mark on the hand of one to
distinguish it from the hand of the other. By what mysterious process of
divination had she succeeded in discovering which was which?

She was unwilling, or unable, to reply to that question plainly.

"Something in me answers to one of them and not to the other," she said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know. It answers to Oscar. It doesn't answer to Nugent--that's
all."

She stopped any further inquiries by proposing that we should finish the
evening with some music, in her own sitting-room, on the other side of
the house. When we were seated together at the pianoforte--with the
twin-brothers established as our audience at the other end of the
room--she whispered in my ear:

"I'll tell _you!_"

"Tell me what?"

"How I know which is which when they both of them take my hand. When
Oscar takes it, a delicious tingle runs from his hand into mine, and
steals all over me. I can't describe it any better than that."

"I understand. And when Nugent takes your hand, what do you feel?"

"Nothing!"

"And that is how you found out the difference between them down-stairs?"

"That is how I shall always find out the difference between them. If
Oscar's brother ever attempts to play tricks upon my blindness (he is
quite capable of it--he laughed at my blindness!), that is how I shall
find him out. I told you before I saw him that I hated him. I hate him
still."

"My dear Lucilla!"

"I hate him still!"

She struck the first chords on the piano, with an obstinate frown on her
pretty brow. Our little evening concert began.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH

Nugent puzzles Madame Pratolungo

I WAS far from sharing Lucilla's opinion of Nugent Dubourg. His enormous
self-confidence was, to my mind, too amusing to be in the least
offensive. I liked the spirit and gaiety of the young fellow. He came
much nearer than his brother did to my ideal of the dash and resolution
which ought to distinguish a man on the right side of thirty. So far as
my experience of them went, Nugent was (in the popular English phrase)
good company--and Oscar was not. My nationality leads me to attach great
importance to social qualities. The higher virtues of a man only show
themselves occasionally on compulsion, His social qualities come
familiarly in contact with us every day of our lives. I like to be
cheerful: I am all for the social qualities.

There was one little obstacle in those early days, which set