that the Baroness thought her
the most charming girl she had ever seen.

Lizzie shook her head. "No, she does n't!" she said.

"Do you think everything she says," asked Clifford, "is to be taken the
opposite way?"

"I think that is!" said Lizzie.

Clifford was going to remark that in this case the Baroness must desire
greatly to bring about a marriage between Mr. Clifford Wentworth and
Miss Elizabeth Acton; but he resolved, on the whole, to suppress this
observation.

CHAPTER IX

It seemed to Robert Acton, after Eugenia had come to his house, that
something had passed between them which made them a good deal more
intimate. It was hard to say exactly what, except her telling him that
she had taken her resolution with regard to the Prince Adolf; for Madame
Munster's visit had made no difference in their relations. He came to
see her very often; but he had come to see her very often before. It was
agreeable to him to find himself in her little drawing-room; but this
was not a new discovery. There was a change, however, in this sense:
that if the Baroness had been a great deal in Acton's thoughts before,
she was now never out of them. From the first she had been personally
fascinating; but the fascination now had become intellectual as well. He
was constantly pondering her words and motions; they were as interesting
as the factors in an algebraic problem. This is saying a good deal; for
Acton was extremely fond of mathematics. He asked himself whether it
could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not; hoped
it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amatory passion
itself. If this was love, love had been overrated. Love was a poetic
impulse, and his own state of feeling with regard to the Baroness was
largely characterized by that eminently prosaic sentiment--curiosity.
It was true, as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit observed
to himself, that curiosity, pushed to a given point, might become a
romantic passion; and he certainly thought enough about this charming
woman to make him restless and even a little melancholy. It puzzled and
vexed him at times to feel that he was not more ardent. He was not in
the least bent upon remaining a bachelor. In his younger years he had
been--or he had tried to be--of the opinion that it would be a good deal
"jollier" not to marry, and he had flattered himself that his single
condition was something of a citadel. It was a citadel, at all ev