she paced the drawing-room from end to end, with that
bold sweeping stride which in moments of passion betrayed her. 'Say it out.
I know perfectly what you are hinting at.'

'I never hint,' said the other gravely; 'least of all with those I love.'

'So much the better. I detest an equivoque. If I am to be shot, let me look
the fire in the face.'

'There is no question of shooting at all. I think you are very angry for
nothing.'

'Angry for nothing! Do you call that studied coldness you have
observed towards me all day yesterday nothing? Is your ceremonious
manner--exquisitely polite, I will not deny--is that nothing? Is your
chilling salute when we met--I half believe you curtsied--nothing? That you
shun me, that you take pains not to keep my company, never to be with me
alone is past denial.'

'And I do not deny it,' said Kate, with a voice of calm and quiet meaning.

'At last, then, I have the avowal. You own that you love me no longer.'

'No, I own nothing of the kind: I love you very dearly; but I see that
our ideas of life are so totally unlike, that unless one should bend and
conform to the other, we cannot blend our thoughts in that harmony which
perfect confidence requires. You are so much above me in many things,
so much more cultivated and gifted--I was going to say civilised, and I
believe I might--'

'Ta--ta--ta,' cried Nina impatiently. 'These flatteries are very
ill-timed.'

'So they would be, if they were flatteries; but if you had patience to hear
me out, you'd have learned that I meant a higher flattery for myself.'

'Don't I know it? don't I guess?' cried the Greek. 'Have not your downcast
eyes told it? and that look of sweet humility that says, "At least I am not
a flirt?"'

'Nor am I,' said Kate coldly.

'And I am! Come now, do confess. You want to say it.'

'With all my heart I wish you were not!' And Kate's eyes swam as she spoke.

'And what if I tell you that I know it--that in the very employment of
the arts of what you call coquetry, I am but exercising those powers of
pleasing by which men are led to frequent the salon instead of the cafe,
and like the society of the cultivated and refined better than--'

'No, no, no!' burst in Kate. 'There is no such mock principle in the case.
You are a flirt because you like the homage it secures you, and because,
as you do not believe in such a thing as an honest affection, you have no
scruple about trifling with a man's heart.'

'So muc