h him."

"I meant--without him."

"Oh." He caused the conversation to flourish round another subject.

In the drawing-room, where Gertrude did not follow them all at once,
Jane turned to him.

"Hugh," she said, "was I unkind to her?"

"Unkind?"

"Well, was I kind enough?"

"You are always kind," he said.

"Do you think so? Do you really think so?"

"Don't talk about her, Jinny, I've got other things to attend to."

"What things?"

He put his arm round her and drew her to their seat beside the hearth.
So drawn, so held, she looked in his face and smiled that singular smile
of hers that he found so adorable and incomprehensible.

"I'm tired of being made love to. I'm going," she said, "to fling off
all maidenly reserve and make love to you."

She put away his arm from her and rose and seated herself with audacity
on his knees.

"The devil gets into me when I have to talk to Gertrude."

She put her arm lightly and shyly about him.

"Do you mind?" she said.

"No, Jinny, I rather like it."

Her arms tightened ever so little.

"It gives you, doesn't it, an agreeable sense of impropriety at your own
fireside?"

She did something to his hair which made him look unlike himself or any
Brodrick.

"Supposing," she said, "you repulse me? Could you repulse me?"

"No, Jinny; I don't think I ever could."

"What, not this outrageous hussy, flinging herself at your head, and
rumpling your nice collar?"

She let him go that she might look at him and see how he really took it.
He drew her and held her close to him in arms that trembled violently,
while her lips brushed his with skimming, fugitive kisses, and kisses
that lingered a moment in their flight.

"Do you like the way I make love?" she said. "And do you like my gown
and the way I do my hair?"

His voice shook. "Jinny, why aren't you always like this? Why aren't you
always adorable?"

"I can't be anything--always. Don't you adore me in my other moods?"

"Can you," said he, "adore a little devil when it teases?"

"I never tease you when you're tired."

"No, but I'm sometimes tired when you tease me. You are, darling, just a
little bit exhausting for one man."

"Yes," said Jinny complacently; "I can exhaust you. But you can never,
never exhaust me. There's always more where I came from."

"The trouble is, Jinny, that I can't always make you out. I never know
where I am with you."

"But, my dear, think of having to live with a woman whom you