ent.

"You say that?" he said. "You!"

"And why not?"

"But--but you are so young!" he said, evidently finding a difficulty in
putting his impressions. "I beg your pardon--I ought not to talk about
it at all. But it was so odd that----"

"That I knew anything about Mrs. Verrier's affairs?" said Miss Floyd,
with a rather uncomfortable laugh. "Well, you see, American girls are
not like English ones. We don't pretend not to know what everybody
knows."

"Of course," said Roger hurriedly; "but you wouldn't think it a fair and
square thing to do?"

"Think what?"

"Why, to marry a man, and then talk of divorcing him because people
didn't invite you to their parties."

"She was very unhappy," said Daphne stubbornly.

"Well, by Jove!" cried the young man, "she doesn't look very happy now!"

"No," Miss Floyd admitted. "No. There are many people who think she'll
never get over it."

"Well, I give it up." The Apollo shrugged his handsome shoulders. "You
say it was she who proposed to divorce him?--yet when the wretched man
removes himself, then she breaks her heart!"

"Naturally she didn't mean him to do it in that way," said the girl,
with impatience. "Of course you misunderstood me entirely!--_entirely!_"
she added with an emphasis which suited with her heightened colour and
evidently ruffled feelings.

Young Barnes looked at her with embarrassment. What a queer,
hot-tempered girl! Yet there was something in her which attracted him.
She was graceful even in her impatience. Her slender neck, and the dark
head upon it, her little figure in the white muslin, her dainty arms and
hands--these points in her delighted an honest eye, quite accustomed to
appraise the charms of women. But, by George! she took herself
seriously, this little music-teacher. The air of wilful command about
her, the sharpness with which she had just rebuked him, amazed and
challenged him.

"I am very sorry if I misunderstood you," he said, a little on his
dignity; "but I thought you----"

"You thought I sympathized with Mrs. Verrier? So I do; though of course
I am awfully sorry that such a dreadful thing happened. But you'll find,
Mr. Barnes, that American girls----" The colour rushed into her small
olive cheeks. "Well, we know all about the old ideas, and we know also
too well that there's only one life, and we don't mean to have that one
spoilt. The old notions of marriage--your English notions," cried the
girl facing him--"make it tyrann