as no use putting things prettily to her when she snapped you up
in this way.

"You know you were," he said reproachfully.

"I assure you," said she, "I don't know what you are talking about,
but apparently it is something dreadful; so perhaps one of us ought to
go away."

As he did not take this hint, she opened a tattered Tauchnitz which
was lying at her elbow. They are always lying at your elbow in a Swiss
hotel, with the first pages missing.

Tommy watched her gloomily. "This is unworthy of you," he said.

"What is?"

He was not quite sure, but as he sat there misgivings entered his mind
and began to gnaw. Was it all a mistake of his? Undeniably he did
think too much. After all, had she not been moved? 'Sdeath!

His restlessness made her look up. "It must be a great load off your
mind," she said, with gentle laughter, "to know that your apology was
unnecessary."

"It is," Tommy said; "it is." ('Sdeath!)

She resumed her book.

So this was how one was rewarded for a generous impulse! He felt very
bitter. "So, so," he said inwardly; also, "Very well, ve-ry well."
Then he turned upon himself. "Serve you right," he said brutally.
"Better stick to your books, Thomas, for you know nothing about
women." To think for one moment that he had moved her! That streak of
marble moved! He fell to watching her again, as if she were some
troublesome sentence that needed licking into shape. As she bent
impertinently over her book, she was an insult to man. All Tommy's
interest in her revived. She infuriated him.

"Alice," he whispered.

"Do keep quiet till I finish this chapter," she begged lazily.

It brought him at once to the boiling-point.

"Alice!" he said fervently.

She had noticed the change in his voice. "People are looking," she
said, without moving a muscle.

There was some subtle flattery to him in the warning, but he could not
ask for more, for just then Mrs. Jerry came in. She was cloaked for
the garden, and he had to go with her, sulkily. At the door she
observed that the ground was still wet.

"Are you wearing your goloshes?" said he, brightening. "You must get
them, Mrs. Jerry; I insist."

She hesitated. (Her room was on the third floor.) "It is very good of
you to be so thoughtful of me," she said, "but----"

"But I have no right to try to take care of you," he interposed in a
melancholy voice. "It is true. Let us go."

"I sha'n't be two minutes," said Mrs. Jerry, in a flutter, and went
o