on their way.

"After we have fortified ourselves," said Mark, "perhaps we shall find
it possible to make up our minds."

When they reached the restaurant in Piccadilly, Carrissima admitted
that she felt glad to sit down.

"Now, don't you think," suggested Mark, after she had drunk two cups of
China tea and sampled the cakes, "we might begin serious business at
the next place."

"If you're really sick of it," she answered, "we may as well go back to
the beginning, though I wanted to visit one or two places about here."

"O Lord!" exclaimed Mark.

"You see," she replied, "I really made up my mind at once. We haven't
seen anything so good for the price as that bronze and black Childema
rug at Mabred's."

"Then we have simply wasted the whole afternoon!"

"It isn't very nice of you to say that," cried Carrissima, rising from
her chair, with a laugh. They were soon on their way back to the first
warehouse they had visited, and the bronze and black carpet having been
after some trouble identified, Mark drew a cheque to pay the bill.

On going out to the street again, he was on the point of hailing
another taxi-cab, when Carrissima proposed walking at least a part of
the way.

"Carrissima," he said, gazing down into her eyes, a few minutes later,
"what is the colour?"

"Oh well," she replied, "there are ever so many blended together, you
know."

"I thought there must be two," he admitted.

"Of course," she said, "the general effect is bronze and black."

"Blue or grey?" murmured Mark, as she looked up again.

"Have many carpets made you mad?" she demanded. "I don't understand
what you are talking about!"

"I was wondering about the colour of your eyes. I can't quite make up
my mind about them," he continued. "At one moment they look grey, at
another blue."

"Surely," answered Carrissima, quite unwontedly happy, "you have known
me long enough to feel no doubt."

"It is possible," said Mark, "that I have known you too long."

"Oh, thank you," she exclaimed. "So custom stales any variety they
possess."

"Not at all," he urged. "What I meant was that familiarity, as the
copybooks say, may breed a kind of--well, scarcely contempt----"

"Mark," said Carrissima, "the more you say the worse you will make it.
I really think you had better be quiet. How long is it," she asked, as
they walked towards Weymouth Street on the way to Grandison Square,
"since you saw Bridget?"

"Not since the day after m