ear boy, there's at this rate nothing to mention! What does Julia
want to wait for?"

"Till I like her better--that's what she says."

"It's the way to make you like her worse," Mr. Carteret knowingly
declared. "Hasn't she your affection?"

"So much so that her delay makes me exceedingly unhappy."

Mr. Carteret looked at his young friend as if he didn't strike him as
quite wretched; but he put the question: "Then what more does she want?"
Nick laughed out at this, though perceiving his host hadn't meant it as
an epigram; while the latter resumed: "I don't understand. You're
engaged or you're not engaged."

"She is, but I'm not. That's what she says about it. The trouble is she
doesn't believe in me."

Mr. Carteret shone with his candour. "Doesn't she love you then?"

"That's what I ask her. Her answer is that she loves me only too well.
She's so afraid of being a burden to me that she gives me my freedom
till I've taken another year to think."

"I like the way you talk about other years!" Mr. Carteret cried. "You
had better do it while I'm here to bless you."

"She thinks I proposed to her because she got me in for Harsh," said
Nick.

"Well, I'm sure it would be a very pretty return."

"Ah she doesn't believe in me," the young man repeated.

"Then I don't believe in _her_."

"Don't say that--don't say that. She's a very rare creature. But she's
proud, shy, suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?"

"Of everything. She thinks I'm not persistent."

"Oh, oh!"--Nick's host deprecated such freedom.

"She can't believe I shall arrive at true eminence."

"A good wife should believe what her husband believes," said Mr.
Carteret.

"Ah unfortunately"--and Nick took the words at a run--"I don't believe
it either."

Mr. Carteret, who might have been watching an odd physical rush, spoke
with a certain dryness. "Your dear father did."

"I think of that--I think of that," Nick replied.

"Certainly it will help me. If I say we're engaged," he went on, "it's
because I consider it so. She gives me my liberty, but I don't take it."

"Does she expect you to take back your word?"

"That's what I ask her. _She_ never will. Therefore we're as good as
tied."

"I don't like it," said Mr. Carteret after a moment. "I don't like
ambiguous, uncertain situations. They please me much better when they're
definite and clear." The retreat of expression had been sounded in his
face--the aspect it wore when he wished not to be e