those that kiss hands."

"Shall I choose something else to kiss, next time?"

But Dolly looked so frightened that Mr. Shubrick, laughing, went back
to his story.

"We were at Sorrento," he said. "You can suppose my state of mind. I
thought at least I would take disapprobation piecemeal, and I asked
Christina to go out on the bay with me. You have been on the bay of
Sorrento about sun-setting?"

"Oh yes, many a time."

"I did not enjoy it at first. I hope you did. I think Christina did. It
was the fairest evening imaginable; and my oar, every stroke I made,
broke and shivered purple and golden waters. It was sailing over the
rarest possible mosaic in which the pattern was constantly shifting. I
studied it, while I was studying how to begin what I had to do. Then,
after a while, when we were well out from shore, I lay on my oars, and
asked Miss Thayer whether she were sure that her judgment was according
to her words, in the matter we had been discussing at the house? She
asked what I meant. I put it to her then, whether she would choose to
marry a man who liked another woman better than he did herself?

"Christina's eyes opened a little, and she said 'Not if she knew it.'

"'Then you gave a wrong verdict up there,' I said.

"'But that was about what the _man_ should do,' she replied. 'If he
has made a promise, he must fulfil it. Or the woman, if it is the
woman.'

"'Would not that be doing a wrong to the other party?'

"'How a wrong?' said Christina. 'It would be keeping a promise. Every
honourable person does that.'

"'What if it be a promise which the other side no longer wishes to
have kept?'

"'You cannot tell that,' said Christina. 'You cannot know. Probably
the other side does wish it kept.'

"I reminded her that she had just declared _she_, in the circumstances,
would not wish it; but she said, somewhat illogically, 'that it made no
difference.'

"I suggested an application of the golden rule."

"Yes," said Dolly; "I think that rule settles it. I should think no
woman would let a man marry her who, she knew, liked somebody else
better."

"And no man in his senses--no _good_ man," said Sandie, "would have a
woman for his wife whose heart belonged to another man; or, leaving
third parties out of the question, whose heart did not belong to _him_.
I said something of this to Christina. She answered me with the
consequences of scandal, disgrace, gossip, which she said attend the
breaking off of a