resting conversation among the Polar landscapes downstairs.
That's what I came in here to see. We'll sit and admire the groups of
penguins among the icebergs while we talk."

"No; I don't think we will," said I. I didn't mean to do anything this
young man meant me to. I wasn't Million, to be hypnotised by his looks
and his clothes and his honeyed Irish voice, forsooth. "I don't care to
see those photographs. Not a bit like the Pole, probably. I am not
coming down, Mr. Burke."

"Ah, come along," he persisted, smiling at me as he stood at the top of
the stairs that led to the other exhibition. "Be a good little girl and
come, now!"

"Certainly not," I said, with considerable emphasis on the "not."

I repeated steadily: "I am not coming. I have nothing to talk to you
about. And, really, I think I have seen quite enough----"

"Of you!" was my unspoken ending to this sentence. These "asides" seem
to sprinkle one's conversations with words written, as it were, in
invisible ink. How seldom can one publish them abroad, these mental
conclusions of one's remarks! No, no; life is quite complicated enough
without that.... So I concluded, rather lamely, looking round the
gallery with the drawings of Orientalised Europeans: "I have seen quite
enough of this exhibition. So I am going----"

"To have tea, of course. That is a very sound scheme of yours, Miss
Lovelace," said Mr. Burke briskly but courteously. "You'll let me have
the pleasure of taking you somewhere, won't you?"

"Certainly not," I said again. This time the emphasis was on the
"certainly." Then, as I was turning to leave the gallery, I looked again
at this Mr. Burke. He may be what my far-away brother Reggie would call
"a wrong 'un." And I believe that he is. But he is certainly a very
presentable-looking wrong 'un--far more presentable than I, Beatrice
Lovelace, am--was, I mean. Thank goodness, and my mistress's salary,
there is absolutely no fault to be found with my entirely plain black
outdoor things. And, proportionately, I have spent more of the money on
my boots, gloves, and neckwear than on the other part of my turn-out.
There's some tradition in our family of Lady Anastasia's having laid
down this law. It is quite "sound," as Mr. Burke called it.

Now this presentable-looking but otherwise very discreditable Mr. Burke
was quite capable of following me wherever I went. And if there is one
thing I should loathe it is any kind of "fuss" in a public place. So