!"

"Is it?"

"Blackguarding her to you when she's giving a big party for you! Just
the way Henrietta would blackguard me to you--heaven knows what she
WOULDN'T say if she talked about me to you! It would be fair, of course,
but--well, I'd rather she didn't!" And with that, Alice let her pretty
hand, in its white glove, rest upon his arm for a moment; and he looked
down at it, not unmoved to see it there. "I want to be unfair about
just this," she said, letting a troubled laughter tremble through
her appealing voice as she spoke. "I won't take advantage of her with
anybody, except just--you! I'd a little rather you didn't hear anybody
blackguard me, and, if you don't mind--could you promise not to give
Henrietta the chance?"

It was charmingly done, with a humorous, faint pathos altogether
genuine; and Russell found himself suddenly wanting to shout at her,
"Oh, you DEAR!" Nothing else seemed adequate; but he controlled the
impulse in favour of something more conservative.

"Imagine any one speaking unkindly of you--not praising you!"

"Who HAS praised me to you?" she asked, quickly.

"I haven't talked about you with any one; but if I did, I know
they'd----"

"No, no!" she cried, and went on, again accompanying her words with
little tremulous runs of laughter. "You don't understand this town yet.
You'll be surprised when you do; we're different. We talk about one
another fearfully! Haven't I just proved it, the way I've been going for
Henrietta? Of course I didn't say anything really very terrible about
her, but that's only because I don't follow that practice the way most
of the others do. They don't stop with the worst of the truth they can
find: they make UP things--yes, they really do! And, oh, I'd RATHER they
didn't make up things about me--to you!"

"What difference would it make if they did?" he inquired, cheerfully.
"I'd know they weren't true."

"Even if you did know that, they'd make a difference," she said. "Oh,
yes, they would! It's too bad, but we don't like anything quite so well
that's had specks on it, even if we've wiped the specks off;--it's just
that much spoiled, and some things are all spoiled the instant they're
the least bit spoiled. What a man thinks about a girl, for instance. Do
you want to have what you think about me spoiled, Mr. Russell?"

"Oh, but that's already far beyond reach," he said, lightly.

"But it can't be!" she protested.

"Why not?"

"Because it never can be. Me