is this I hear? I insist
upon knowing. Are you going to fight a duel?"

"Nonsense," said Johnny.

"But it is not nonsense. You don't know what my feelings will be, if
I think that such a thing is going to happen. But then you are so
hard-hearted!"

"I ain't hard-hearted a bit, and I'm not going to fight a duel."

"But is it true that you beat Mr Crosbie at the station?"

"It is true. I did beat him."

"Oh, John! not that I mean to say you were wrong, and indeed I honour
you for the feeling. There can be nothing so dreadful as a young
man's deceiving a young woman; and leaving her after he has won her
heart--particularly when she has had promise in plain words, or,
perhaps, even in black and white." John thought of that horrid,
foolish, wretched note which he had written. "And a poor girl, if she
can't right herself by a breach of promise, doesn't know what to do.
Does she, John?"

"A girl who'd right herself that way wouldn't be worth having."

"I don't know about that. When a poor girl is in such a position, she
has to be aided by her friends. I suppose, then, Miss Lily Dale won't
bring a breach of promise against him."

This mention of Lily's name in such a place was sacrilege in the ears
of poor Eames. "I cannot tell," said he, "what may be the intention
of the lady of whom you speak. But from what I know of her friends, I
should not think that she will be disgraced by such a proceeding."

"That may be all very well for Miss Lily Dale--" Amelia said, and
then she hesitated. It would not be well, she thought, absolutely to
threaten him as yet,--not as long as there was any possibility that
he might be won without a threat. "Of course I know all about it,"
she continued. "She was your L. D., you know. Not that I was ever
jealous of her. To you she was no more than one of childhood's
friends. Was she, Johnny?"

He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then jumped up from his seat.
"I hate all that sort of twaddle about childhood's friends, and you
know I do. You'll make me swear that I'll never come into this room
again."

"Johnny!"

"So I will. The whole thing makes me sick. And as for that Mrs
Lupex--"

"If this is what you learn, John, by going to a lord's house, I think
you had better stay at home with your own friends."

"Of course I had;--much better stay at home with my own friends.
Here's Mrs Lupex, and at any rate I can't stand her." So he went
off, and walked round the Crescent, and down to