ou, Clephane?"

"That depends where you are going."

Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I
thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking
up again.

"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot.
You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as
I may have seemed--to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped
short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also.

"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried
its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more
blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I
may congratulate you."

And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my
turn to stare.

"Indeed you may not," said I.

"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked.

"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?"

"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious
bewilderment. "I--you see--I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!"

"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know
that missive's gist.

"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I
heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down
with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd
know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and
all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I
had better ask you."

"But you wouldn't condescend."

Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh.

"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you
were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!"

"Well, I'm not."

"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?"

"She hasn't had the chance."

Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width.

"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged.

"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said."

"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it
is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in
earnest if you were not."

And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself;
he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret
filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience.

"Why are you sorry?" I demanded.

"Oh, not on my own account," said