of
mistrust and aversion, her behavior is singularly misleading."

"Mistrust! Aversion! I tell you she is in love with you."

"But you have not, you admit, her authority for saying so, whereas I
_have_ her authority for the contrary."

"You do not understand girls. You are mistaken."

"Possibly; but you must pardon me if I hesitate to set aside my own
judgment in deference to your low estimate of it."

"Very well," said Mrs. Fairfax, her patience yielding a little to his
persistent stiffness: "be it so. Many men would be glad to beg what you
will not be bribed to accept."

"No doubt. I trust that when they so humble themselves they may not
encounter a flippant repulse."

"If they do, it will spring from her unmerited regard for you."

He bowed slightly, and turned away, arranging his gloves as if about to
rise.

"Pray what is that large picture which is skied over there to the
right?" said Mrs. Fairfax, after a pause, during which she had feigned
to examine her catalogue. "I cannot see the number at this distance."

"Do you defend her conduct on the ground of that senseless and cruel
caprice which your sex seem to consider becoming to them; or has she
changed her mind in my absence?"

"Oh! you are talking of Marian. I do not know what you have to complain
of in her conduct. Mind, she has never breathed a word to me on the
subject. I am quite ignorant of the details of your difference with her.
But she has confessed to me that she is very sorry for what passed--I am
abusing her confidence by telling you so--and I am a woman, with eyes
and brains, and know what the poor girl feels well enough. I will tell
you nothing more: I have no right to; and Marian would be indignant if
she knew how much I have said already. But I know what I should do were
I in your place."

"Expose myself to another refusal, perhaps?"

Mrs. Fairfax, learning now for the first time that he had actually
proposed to Marian, looked at him for some moments in silence with a
smile which was assumed to cover her surprise. He thought it expressed
incredulity at the idea of his being refused again.

"Are you sure?" he began, speaking courteously to her for the first
time. "May I rely upon the accuracy of your impressions on this subject?
I know you are incapable of trifling in a matter which might expose me
to humiliation; but can you give me any guarantee--any--"

"Certainly not, Mr. Douglas. I am really sorry that I cannot give you a
wr