being Wednesday in the heart of June, he may be seen
sitting bolt upright in a hansom on his way to the unlovely house that
holds Miss Jane Majendie.

As he enters the dismal drawing-room, where he finds Miss Majendie and
her niece, it becomes plain, even to his inexperienced brain, that there
has just been a row on somewhere.

Perpetua is sitting on a distant lounge, her small vivacious face one
thunder-cloud. Miss Majendie, sitting on the hardest chair this hideous
room contains, is smiling. A terrible sign. The professor pales before
it.

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Curzon," says Miss Majendie, rising and
extending a bony hand. "As Perpetua's guardian, you may perhaps have
some influence over her. I say 'perhaps' advisedly, as I scarcely dare
to hope _anyone_ could influence a mind so distorted as hers."

"What is it?" asks the professor nervously--of Perpetua, not of Miss
Majendie.

"I'm dull," says Perpetua sullenly.

The professor glances keenly at the girl's downcast face, and then at
Miss Majendie. The latter glance is a question.

"You hear her," says Miss Majendie coldly--she draws her shawl round her
meagre shoulders, and a breath through her lean nostrils that may be
heard. "Perhaps _you_ may be able to discover her meaning."

"What is it?" asks the professor, turning to the girl, his tone anxious,
uncertain. Young women with "wrongs" are unknown to him, as are all
other sorts of young women for the matter of that. And _this_ particular
young woman looks a little unsafe at the present moment.

"I have told you! I am tired of this life. I am dull--stupid. I want to
go out." Her lovely eyes are flashing, her face is white--her lips
trembling. "_Take_ me out," says she suddenly.

"Perpetua!" exclaims Miss Majendie. "How unmaidenly! How immodest!"

Perpetua looks at her with large, surprised eyes.

"Why?" says she.

"I really think," interrupts the professor hurriedly, who sees breakers
ahead, "if I were to take Perpetua for a walk--a drive--to--er--to some
place or other--it might destroy this _ennui_ of which she complains. If
you will allow her to come out with me for an hour or so, I----"

"If you are waiting for _my_ sanction, Mr. Curzon, to that extraordinary
proposal, you will wait some time," says Miss Majendie slowly, frigidly.
She draws the shawl still closer, and sniffs again.

"But----"

"There is no 'But,' sir. The subject doesn't admit of argument. In my
young days, and I should