."

"I haven't the remotest idea--unless it was your intellect."

"I should also like to know," said Audrey to the teapot, "why people
fall in love?"

"The taste is either natural or acquired. Some take to it because they
like it; some are driven to it by a hereditary tendency or an unhappy
home. I do it myself to drown care."

"Will you have any tea?" asked Audrey, sternly.

"No, thank you, I won't."

She laughed, as she might have laughed at a greedy child for revenging
on its stomach the injury done to its heart. Poor Ted, he was fond of
chocolate cake too! She would have given anything at that moment if she
could have provoked him into quarrelling with her.

Instead of quarrelling, he stroked her beautiful hair as if she had been
some soft but irritable animal. He said he was sure her dear little head
was aching because she was so bad-tempered; he implored her not to eat
too much cake, and promised to call again another day, when he hoped to
find her better. So he left her, and went home with a dead weight at his
heart.

Towards evening his misery became so acute that he could no longer keep
it to himself. They were on the leads, in the long August twilight,
Katherine sitting with her back against the tall chimney, watching the
reflection of the sunset in the east, the boy lying at her feet, with
his heels in the air and his head in the nasturtiums. The time, the
place, the attitude were all favourable to confidences, and Ted wound up
his by asking Katherine what she thought of Audrey? Now was the moment
to rid herself of the burden that weighed on her; Ted might never be in
so favourable a mood again. She spoke very gently.

"Ted, I am going to hurt your feelings. I don't quite know how to tell
you what I think of her. She's not good enough for you, to begin
with----"

"I know she's not intelligent. She can't help that."

"And she's not affectionate. Oh, Ted, forgive me! but she doesn't love
you--she can't, it's not in her. She loves no one but herself."

"She _is_ a little selfish, but she can't help that either. It makes no
difference."

"So I fear. And then she's years older than you are, and you can't marry
for ages; don't you see how impossible it all is?"

Her voice thrilled with her longing to impress him with her own
conviction. His passion was wrestling with a ghastly doubt, but it was
of the kind that dies hard.

"Of course it's quite impossible now"--neither he nor Katherine
considere