e?_" he repeats, a little doubtfully turning over the letters
that lie in a heap beside his plate. "Well, I do not know about
_that_--duty first, and pleasure afterward. Had not I better go to
Zephine Huntley's _first_, and get it over?"

"To _Zephine Huntley's_?" repeat I, my fingers suddenly breaking off in
the middle of their tune, as I turn quickly round to face him; the smile
disappearing from my face, and my jaw lengthening; "you do not mean to
say that you are going there _again_?"

"Yes, _again_!" he answers, laughing a little, and slightly mimicking my
tragic tone; "why not, Nancy?"

I make no answer. I turn away and look out; but I see a different
landscape. It looks to me as if I were regarding it through dark-blue
glass.

"I have got a whole sheaf of letters and papers from her husband for
her," pursues Roger, apparently calmly, and utterly unaware of my
discomfiture, "and I do not want to keep her out of them longer than I
can help."

Still I make no rejoinder. My fingers stray idly up and down the glass;
but it is no longer a giddy waltz that they are executing--if it is a
tune at all, it is some little dirge.

"What has happened to you, Nancy?" says Roger, presently, becoming aware
of my silence, rising and following me; "what are you doing--catching
flies?"

"No," reply I, with an acrid smartness, "not I! I leave that to Mrs.
Zephine."

Once again he regards me with that look of unfeigned surprise, tinged
with a little pain which yesterday I detected on his face. When I look
at him, when my eyes rest on the brave and open honesty of his, my ugly,
nipping doubts disappear.

"Do not go," say I, standing on tiptoe, so that my hands may reach his
neck, and clasp it, speaking in my most beguiling half-whisper; "why
should you fetch and carry for her? let John or William take her
letters. Are you so sure" (with an irresistible sneer) "that she is in
such a hurry for them?--stay with me this _one first_ day!--_do,
please--Roger._"

It is the first time in all my history that I have succeeded in
delivering myself of his Christian name to his face--frequently as I
have fired it off in dialogues with myself, behind his back. It shoots
out now with the loud suddenness of a mismanaged soda-water cork.

"_Roger!_" he repeats, in an accent of keen pleasure, catching me to his
heart; "what! I am _Roger_, after all, am I? The 'general' has gone to
glory at last, has he?--thank God!"

"I will ring and te