hat gentleman's house;--for he is a
gentleman."

"That he certainly is."

"You could not have accepted him were he not so. But how can I be
your friend when you are his wife? I may still call you cousin Alice,
and pat your children on the head if I chance to see them; and shall
stop in the streets and shake hands with him if I meet him;--that is
if my untoward fate does not induce him to cut my acquaintance;--but
as for friendship, that will be over when you and I shall have parted
next Thursday evening at London Bridge."

"Oh, George, don't say so!"

"But I do."

"And why on Thursday? Do you mean that you won't come to Queen Anne
Street any more?"

"Yes, that is what I do mean. This trip of ours has been very
successful, Kate says. Perhaps Kate knows nothing about it."

"It has been very pleasant,--at least to me."

"And the pleasure has had no drawback?"

"None to me."

"It has been very pleasant to me, also;--but the pleasure has had its
alloy. Alice, I have nothing to ask from you,--nothing."

"Anything that you should ask, I would do for you."

"I have nothing to ask;--nothing. But I have one word to say."

"George, do not say it. Let me go up-stairs. Let me go to Kate."

"Certainly; if you wish it you shall go." He still held his foot
against the chair which barred her passage, and did not attempt to
rise as he must have done to make way for her passage out. "Certainly
you shall go to Kate, if you refuse to hear me. But after all
that has passed between us, after these six weeks of intimate
companionship, I think you ought to listen to me. I tell you that I
have nothing to ask. I am not going to make love to you."

Alice had commenced some attempt to rise, but she had again settled
herself in her chair. And now, when he paused for a moment, she made
no further sign that she wished to escape, nor did she say a word to
intimate her further wish that he should be silent.

"I am not going to make love to you," he said again. "As for making
love, as the word goes, that must be over between you and me. It has
been made and marred, and cannot be remade. It may exist, or it may
have been expelled; but where it does not exist, it will never be
brought back again."

"It should not be spoken of between you and me."

"So, no doubt, any proper-going duenna would say, and so, too, little
children should be told; but between you and me there can be no
necessity for falsehood. We have grown beyond our suga