to go to the wharf with you, Mr. Horne, why, I won't go, of course. Good
evening."

She wanted to go out, but Dudley stood in the way, preventing her.

"You're quite wrong, I assure you," said he, quickly. "There has been a
little discussion about it, certainly; but I think you and my friend are
quite right, and it would be much better if you would go with us--much
better. Pray don't be annoyed at anything I've said. Remember, I have
never seen you before, while my friend, who knows you better, naturally
appreciates you more."

Carrie maintained an attitude of cold stolidity while Dudley spoke.

"Am I to go with you now, then?" she asked, coldly, when he had finished
speaking.

"Well, no, I think not. It will only take me ten minutes to go down into
the Strand and put off the fellow I was going to the theatre with. I'll
come back here, and we'll all go on together."

Carrie looked at him steadfastly while he spoke, and he returned her
gaze. For a few moments there was silence, and then it was broken by an
exclamation from Max. He was staring first at one and then at the other
with a face full of perplexity.

"Do you know," cried he at last, "that when you both look like that, and
I turn from one to the other, it is as if I were looking all the time
_at the same face_?"

Both Dudley and Carrie looked startled as they withdrew their eyes from
each other's face. Then each sought the eyes of the other again as if it
were furtively. Dudley seemed, of the two, the more impressed by his
friend's words. He laughed with some constraint.

"Fanciful, very fanciful," said he, mockingly. "What likeness can there
be between a girl with a white face, fair hair and blue eyes," and he
gave a glance at Carrie which had in it something of fear, "and a man of
my type?"

Max looked at him, and then said slowly:

"It's not in the features, I know; it's not in the coloring; but it is
there, for all that."

"The young lady will not feel flattered," said Dudley, ironically. "I
will leave you to make your peace with her, and when I come back, in ten
minutes, I expect to find you both ready to start."

He had his hand on the door, when some thought seemed to strike him, and
he hesitated and turned to put his hand on the shoulder of Max. Then he
swung the young man round in such a way that his own back was turned to
Carrie. Looking steadily and with a certain look of affectionate regard
into his friend's face, he formed with his