, I can never re-become Potts; if Potts,
I am lost,--or rather, Miss Herbert is lost to me forever. What a dire
embarrassment! Not to mention that in the passport I was Ponto!"

"Mrs. Keats desired me to beg you will step up to her room after
breakfast, and bring your account-books with you." This was said by Miss
Herbert as she entered and took her place at the table.

"What has the old woman got in her head?" said I, angrily. "I have no
account-books,--I never had such in my life. When I travel alone, I say
to my courier, 'Diomede'--he is a Greek--'Diomede, pay;' and he pays.
When Diomede is not with me, I ask, 'How much?' and I give it."

"It certainly simplifies travel," said she, gravely.

"It does more, Miss Herbert: it accomplishes the end of travel. Your
doctor says, 'Go abroad,--take a holiday--turn your back on Downing
Street, and bid farewell to cabinet councils.' Where is the benefit
of such a course, I ask, if you are to pass the vacation cursing
customhouse officers, bullying landlords, and browbeating waiters? I
say always, 'Give me a bad dinner if you must, but do not derange my
digestion; rather a damp bed than thorns in the pillow.'"

"I am to say that you will see her, however," said she, with that
matter-of-fact adhesiveness to the question that never would permit her
to join in my digressions.

"Then I go under protest, Miss Herbert,--under protest, and, as the
lawyers say, without prejudice,--that is, I go as a private gentleman,
irresponsible and independent. Tell her this, and say, I know nothing
of figures: arithmetic may suit the Board of Trade; in the Foreign
Department we ignore it You may add, too, if you like, that from what
you have seen of me, I am of a haughty disposition, easily offended, and
very vindictive,--very!"

"But I really don't think this," said she, with a bewitching smile.

"Not to _you_ de--" I was nearly in it again: "not to _you_," said I,
stammering and blushing till I felt on fire. I suspect that she saw all
the peril of the moment, for she left the room hurriedly, on the pretext
of asking Mrs. Keats to take more tea.

"She is sensible of your devotion, Potts; but is she touched by it? Has
she said to herself, 'That man is my fate, my destiny,--it is no use
resisting him; dark and mysterious as he is, I am drawn towards him
by an inscrutable sympathy'--or is she still struggling in the toils,
muttering to her heart to be still, and to wait? Flutter away, gentle