th been bitten. In a
nut-shell, there's the state of the case.'

'You sought me out--'

'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why
should you and I talk about it, when you and I can't disguise it? To
proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

'Am I no one?'

'Some one--and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You,
too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

'An injured figure!'

'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured
without my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is
not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such
a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust.'

'And when I look back--' the bride cries, interrupting.

'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been--you'll excuse
the word?'

'Most certainly, with so much reason.

'--Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the
folly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you cannot
get rid of me. What follows?'

'Shame and misery,' the bride bitterly replies.

'I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carry
us through. Here I split my discourse (give me your arm, Sophronia),
into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it's enough
to have been done, without the mortification of being known to have been
done. So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree?'

'If it is possible, I do.'

'Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can't we,
united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we owe the Veneerings
a grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be
taken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. Agreed?'

'Yes. Agreed.'

'We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer,
Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. So are
you, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own secret, and
to work together in furtherance of our own schemes.'

'What schemes?'

'Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean our
joint interest. Agreed?'

She answers, after a little hesitation, 'I suppose so. Agreed.'

'Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more.
We know one another perfectly. Don't be tempted into twitting me with
the past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical with
the past knowledge that I have