t me."

"Well, it was something in connection with yourself. It might offend
you."

"It wouldn't trouble you much if it did, would it?"

"No, I don't suppose it would."

"Then why not tell me?"

"I was thinking of your lover."

It did offend her; I thought it would. But she looked really interesting
when she was cross. Her grey eyes would flash, and her whole body
quiver. There was a charming spice of danger always about making her
cross.

"I suppose you think I shall never have one."

"On the contrary, I think you will have a good many." I had not thought
so before then. I formed the idea for the first time in that moment,
while looking straight into her angry face. It was still a childish
face.

The anger died out of it as it always did within the minute, and she
laughed. "It would be fun, wouldn't it. I wonder what I should do with
him? It makes you feel very serious being in love, doesn't it?"

"Very."

"Have you ever been in love?"

I hesitated for a moment. Then the delight of talking about it overcame
my fear of being chaffed. Besides, when she felt it, nobody could be
more delightfully sympathetic. I determined to adventure it.

"Yes," I answered, "ever since I was a boy. If you are going to be
foolish," I added, for I saw the laugh before it came, "I shan't talk to
you about it."

"I'm not--I won't, really," she pleaded, making her face serious again.
"What is she like?"

I took from my breast pocket Barbara's photograph, and handed it to her
in silence.

"Is she really as beautiful as that?" she asked, gazing at it evidently
fascinated.

"More so," I assured her. "Her expression is the most beautiful part of
her. Those are only her features."

She sighed. "I wish I was beautiful."

"You are at an awkward age," I told her. "It is impossible to say what
you are going to be like."

"Mamma was a lovely woman, everybody says so; and Tom I call awfully
handsome. Perhaps I'll be better when I'm filled out a bit more." A
small Venetian mirror hung between the two windows; she glanced up into
it. "It's my nose that irritates me," she said. She rubbed it viciously,
as if she would rub it out.

"Some people admire snub noses," I explained to her.

"No, really?"

"Tennyson speaks of them as 'tip-tilted like the petals of a rose.'"

"How nice of him! Do you think he meant my sort?" She rubbed it again,
but in a kinder fashion; then looked again at Barbara's photograph. "Who
is she?"

"S