ad an unfortunate knack of transparency. Could not she nip the first in
the bud, and sterilise the rest? It was worth the attempt.

"Listen to me, Hamilton," said she; and she was perfectly cool and
collected. "Did I not say to you that there need be no nonsense between
_us_?... How funny men are! Why should you jump because I called you by
name? Do you know that twice since we have been talking here you have
all but called me the name you used to me as a girl?... Yes--you began
saying 'Lip,' and made it Lady Ancester. Please say it all another time.
I shall not bite you.... Look here!--I want you to help me to laugh at
the mistake we made when we were young folks; not to look solemn at it.
We were ridiculous.... You were going to say, 'Why?' Well--I don't
exactly know. Young folks always _are_." The fact is, the Countess was
beginning to feel comfortably detached, and could treat the subject in a
free and easy manner.

The Baronet could not bring himself to allow that he had ever been
ridiculous, without protest. The Man within him rose in rebellion
against such an admission. He felt a little indignant at her
unceremonious pooh-poohing of their early infatuation. He would have
accorded it respectful obsequies at least. But what protest could he
enter that would not lay him open to suspicions of that undying passion?
It appeared to him absolutely impossible to say anything, either way. So
he looked as dignified as he could, consistently with being glad the
room was half dark, because he knew he was red.

His uncomfortable silence, instead of the response in kind her ladyship
had hoped for, interfered a little with the development of her
detachment. She judged it better to wind up the interview, and did it
with spirit. "There, now, Hamilton, _don't talk_--because I know exactly
what you are going to say. Shake hands upon it--a good shake, you
know!--don't throw it away!"

How very different are those two ways of offering a hand, the tender one
and the graspy one. The Countess's stopped out of its glove to emphasize
the latter, and did it so frankly and effectually that it cleared the
air, in which the smell of fire had been perceptible, as in a room where
a match has gone out.

He had, as she said, twice very nearly called her by her old familiar
name of the Romeo and Juliet days. Nevertheless, when he gave her his
hand, saying:--"Perfectly right--perfectly right, Lip! That's the way to
look at it," he threw in the