w what he meant.
'If you were as bold as you are subtle, you would take a more cheerful
view of the matter,' she said, with a look signifying innermost things.

'I will instantly! Shall I test the truth of my cheerful view by a word
of question?'

'I deny that you are capable of taking that view, and until you prove
that you are, no question is allowed,' she said, laughing, and still
warmer in the face and neck. 'Nothing but melancholy, gentle melancholy,
now as in old times when there was nothing to cause it.'

'Ah--you only tease.'

'You will not throw aside that bitter medicine of distrust, for the
world. You have grown so used to it, that you take it as food, as some
invalids do their mixtures.'

'Ethelberta, you have my heart--my whole heart. You have had it ever
since I first saw you. Now you understand me, and no pretending that you
don't, mind, this second time.'

'I understood you long ago; you have not understood me.'

'You are mysterious,' he said lightly; 'and perhaps if I disentangle your
mystery I shall find it to cover--indifference. I hope it does--for your
sake.'

'How can you say so!' she exclaimed reproachfully. 'Yet I wish it did
too--I wish it did cover indifference--for yours. But you have all of me
that you care to have, and may keep it for life if you wish to. Listen,
surely there was a knock at the door? Let us go inside the room: I am
always uneasy when anybody comes, lest any awkward discovery should be
made by a visitor of my miserable contrivances for keeping up the
establishment.'

Joey met them before they had left the landing.

'Please, Berta,' he whispered, 'Mr. Ladywell has called, and I've showed
him into the liberry. You know, Berta, this is how it was, you know: I
thought you and Mr. Julian were in the drawing-room, and wouldn't want
him to see ye together, and so I asked him to step into the liberry a
minute.'

'You must improve your way of speaking,' she said, with quick
embarrassment, whether at the mention of Ladywell's name before Julian,
or at the way Joey coupled herself with Christopher, was quite uncertain.
'Will you excuse me for a few moments?' she said, turning to Christopher.
'Pray sit down; I shall not be long.' And she glided downstairs.

They had been standing just by the drawing-room door, and Christopher
turned back into the room with no very satisfactory countenance. It was
very odd, he thought, that she should go down to Ladywell in tha