ich
embarrassment was only increased by her breaking out in a plaintive
tone--

"Leopold, you strike deeper than you suppose."

"Francis," I cried, changing my tone, "believe me, it is not my
intention to wound you; I wish to cure you."

I was going to take her hand, when she sprang up as if she had received
an electric shock, and said in her bitterest tone--

"I will not be cured by you; I am what I am, and don't you waste your
precious time on such a disagreeable creature as you think me to be."

"Oh, Francis! I am not deceived in you, and I will try to cure you in
spite of yourself. When you made such a terrible scene in my presence
this morning, I understood you. It meant this: He is staying here
to study the character of Major Frank; well now, he shall see it in
all its rudeness and insufferableness, and we shall see how long he
will stay in spite of me. Miss Mordaunt, I have seen through your
intentions, and I am not to be frightened away by the rude mask you
have put on."

"A mask! I am no masker!" she cried, stamping her foot with rage. "You,
Jonker van Zonshoven, come from the Hague, a town full of maskers,
to tell me this, me whose chief defect or merit--which you like--is
to have broken with all social hypocrisies, me whose chief pride is
to speak my mind plainly without regard of persons. I did not think
it necessary to measure my words in your presence; it appeared to me
you had made yourself one of the family, and I thought it best you
should know the relationship in which we stand to each other."

"Just so," I replied, smiling. "You acknowledge that in raising your
voice several notes too high when you gave those two humiliated men
a piece of your mind, your real object was to drive a third person
out of the house. Be sincere, Francis, confess the truth."

I tried in vain to look her in the face whilst I spoke. She had turned
her head away, and was kicking the leg of the table.

"I observe, and not for the first time, that you can be disagreeable
when you like," she remarked, after a long pause.

"I confess it; but an evasion is not an answer, Francis."

"Well then, yes, it is true; I wished you to leave for your own
sake. But never believe, Leopold, whatever stories you hear about me,
that I am deceitful, that I would play a part. I was myself when I
made the scene--violent, angry, and burning with indignation. I have
my whims and fancies, that I know; but I never feign--that would
ill beco