wn; she would give as good
as she got. She was not one to be cowed or put down, wasn't Bee! He felt
himself clapping his hands and urging her on to the combat, and
celebrated in advance with a shout of laughter the discomfiture of all
those young ladies. But she should have nothing more to do with the
Forno-Populo. No; his wife should have none of that sort about her. What
did old Randolph mean always hanging about that old woman, and all the
rest of the old fogeys? It was fun enough so long as you had nothing to
do with them, but, by Jove, not for Lady Montjoie. Then he rushed
upstairs to shower a few rough caresses upon Bice and take his leave of
her, for he had an evening engagement formed before he was aware of the
change which was coming in his life. He had been about her all the
afternoon, and Bice, disturbed in her musings by this onslaught and
somewhat impatient of the caresses, beheld his departure with
satisfaction. It was the first evening since their arrival in town,
which the ladies had planned to spend alone.

And then she recommenced these thinkings which were not so easy as those
of her lover: but she was soon subject to another inroad of a very
different kind. Jock, who had never before come in the evening, appeared
suddenly unannounced at the door of the room with a pale and heavy
countenance. Though Bice had objected to be disturbed by her lover, she
did not object to Jock; he harmonised with the state of her mind, which
Montjoie did not. It seemed even to relieve her of the necessity of
thinking when he appeared--he who did thinking enough, she felt, with
half-conscious humour, for any number of people. He came in with a sort
of eagerness, yet weariness, and explained that he had come to say
good-bye, for he was going off--at once.

"Going off! but it is not time yet," Bice said.

"Because of the fever. But that is not altogether why I have come
either," he said, looking at her from under his curved eyebrows. "I have
got something to say."

"What fever?" she said, sitting upright in her chair.

Jock took no notice of the question; his mind was full of his own
purpose. "Look here," he said huskily, "I know you'll never speak to me
again. But there's something I want to say. We've been friends----"

"Oh yes," she said, raising her head with a gleam of frank and cordial
pleasure, "good friends--_camarades_--and I shall always, always speak
to you. You were my first friend."

"That is" said Jock,