tly. How could I have borne to look your sister
in the face...?"

"You wouldn't have known her! Come, Lady Gwen!"

"Very well, then, give her up. Suppose, instead, the girl you are
engaged to had been a friend of mine, how could I have borne to look
_her_ in the face?"

"_She's_ a hypothesis. There's no such interesting damsel--that I know
of...."

"Oh, isn't there?... Well--she's a hypothesis, and I've a right to as
many hypothesisses as you have."

"I can't deny it."

"Then how should I look her in the face? Answer my question, and don't
prevaricate."

"What a severe--Turk you are! But I won't prevaricate. You wouldn't be
called on to look the hypothesis in the face. She would have broken me
off, like a sensible hypothesis that knew what was due to itself and its
family...."

"Do be serious. Indeed _I_ am serious. It was in my mind all last
night--such a dreadful haunting thought!--what would this girl's
feelings be to me and mine? I made several girls I know stand for the
part. You know how one overdoes things when one is left to oneself and
the darkness?..."

"Yes--that I do! No doubt of it!" The stress of a meaning he could not
help forced its way into his words, in spite of himself. Surely you need
not have shown it, said an inner voice to him. He made no reply. But he
did not see how.

Almost before he had time to repent she had cried out:--"Oh, there now!
See what I have done again! I did not mean it. Do forgive me!" Neither
saw a way to patching up this lapse, and it was ruled out by tacit
consent. Gwen resumed:--"You know, I mean, how one dreams a thousand
things in a minute, and everything is as big as a house, even when it's
only strong coffee. This was worse than strong coffee. There were plenty
of them, these hypothesisses.... Oh yes!--we know plenty of girls you
do. I could count you up a dozen...."

"--One's enough!--that means that one's the allowance, not that it's one
too many...."

"Well--there were a many reproachful dream-faces, and every one of them
said to me:--'See what you have made of my life that might have been so
happy. See how you have con ...'" Gwen had very nearly said _condemned_,
but stopped in time. She could not refer to the demands of an eyeless
mate for constant help in little things, and all the irksomeness of a
home.

Adrian, pretending not to hear "con," spoke at once. "But did none of
these charming girls--I'm sure I should have loved heaps of them--did
none