cheers of assembled Rome crowding the Forum to
back him. If only the horse her metaphor had mounted would take the bit
in his teeth and bolt, tropically, how useful a phantasy it would be!
She became terribly afraid her heroic resolve might die a natural death
during intelligent conversation. Bother _pluies de perles_ and the young
pianist! This dry alternation of responses quashed all serious
conversation. And if this Adrian Torrens went away, to-morrow or next
day, what chance would there be in the uncertain future to compare with
this one? When could she be sure of being alone with him for an hour, at
his father's house or elsewhere? She must--she would--at least find from
him whether some other parallel of the Roman Knight had bespoken the
plunge for herself. She could manage that surely without being
"unmaidenly," whatever that meant. If she couldn't, she would just cut
the matter short and _be_ unmaidenly. But know she _must_!

There is a time before the sun commits himself to setting--as he has
done every day till now, and we all take it for granted he will do
to-morrow--when the raw afternoon relents and the shadows lengthen over
the land; an hour that is not sunset yet, but has begun to know what
sunset means to do for roof and tree-top, and the high hills when a
forecast of the night creeps round their bases; and also for the good
looks of man and wench and beast, and even ugly girls. This hour had
come, and with it the conviction that everybody was sure to be very late
to-night, before Gwen, sitting beside the blind man on the sofa he had
flouted as a couch, got a chance to turn the conversation her way--to
groom the steed, so to speak, of Marcus Curtius for that appointment in
the Forum. It came in a lull, consequent on the momentary dispersion of
subject-matter by the recognition of Society's absence and its probable
late recurrence.

"I was so sorry yesterday, Mr. Torrens." A modulation of Gwen's tone was
not done intentionally. It came with her wish to change the subject.

"What for, then?" said Mr. Torrens, affecting a slight Irish accent with
a purpose not quite clear to himself. It might have given his words
their degree on a seriometer, granted the instrument.

"Don't laugh at me, because I'm in earnest. I mean for being so
unfeeling...."

"Unfeeling?"

"Yes. I don't think talking about it again can make it any worse. But I
do want you to know that I only said it because I got caught--you know