"

"Do you think I want to marry your brother?" says she. "I tell you no,
no, _no_! A thousand times no! The very fact that he _is_ your brother
would prevent me. To be your ward is bad enough, to be your
sister-in-law would be insufferable. For all the world I would not be
more to you than I am now."

"It is a wise decision," says the professor icily. He feels smitten to
his very heart's core. Had he ever dreamed of a nearer, dearer tie
between them?--if so the dream is broken now.

"Decision?" stammers she.

"Not to marry my brother."

"Not to be more to you, you mean!"

"You don't know what you are saying," says the professor, driven beyond
his self-control. "You are a mere child, a baby, you speak at random."

"What!" cries she, flashing round at him, "will you deny that I have
been a trouble to you, that you would have been thankful had you never
heard my name?"

"You are right," gravely. "I deny nothing. I wish with all my soul I had
never heard your name. I confess you troubled me. I go beyond even
_that_, I declare that you have been my undoing! And now, let us make an
end of it. I am a poor man and a busy one, this task your father laid
upon my shoulders is too heavy for me. I shall resign my guardianship;
Gwendoline--Lady Baring--will accept the position. She likes you,
and--you will find it hard to break _her_ heart."

"Do you mean," says the girl, "that I have broken yours? _Yours?_ Have I
been so bad as that? Yours? I have been wilful, I know, and troublesome,
but troublesome people do not break one's heart. What have I done then
that yours should be broken?" She has moved closer to him. Her eyes are
gazing with passionate question into his.

"Do not think of that," says the professor, unsteadily. "Do not let that
trouble you. As I just now told you, I am a poor man, and poor men
cannot afford such luxuries as hearts."

"Yet poor men have them," says the girl in a little low stifled tone.
"And--and girls have them too!"

There is a long, long silence. To Curzon it seems as if the whole world
has undergone a strange, wild upheaval. What had she meant--what? Her
words! Her words meant something, but her looks, her eyes, oh, how much
more _they_ meant! And yet to listen to her--to believe--he, her
guardian, a poor man, and she an heiress! Oh! no. Impossible.

"So much the worse for the poor men," says he deliberately.

There is no mistaking his meaning. Perpetua makes a little rapid
movement