hes and professions at all--he isn't ridiculous."

"I'm afraid you consider then that I am."

"No, I don't"--she spoke it rather shortly. And then she added: "He
understands--understands everything."

The young man was on the point of saying jocosely: "And I don't--is that
it?" But these words, in time, changed themselves to others slightly
less trivial: "Do you suppose he understands his wife?"

Miss Fancourt made no direct answer, but after a moment's hesitation put
it: "Isn't she charming?"

"Not in the least!"

"Here he comes. Now you must know him," she went on. A small group of
visitors had gathered at the other end of the gallery and had been there
overtaken by Henry St. George, who strolled in from a neighbouring room.
He stood near them a moment, not falling into the talk but taking up an
old miniature from a table and vaguely regarding it. At the end of a
minute he became aware of Miss Fancourt and her companion in the
distance; whereupon, laying down his miniature, he approached them with
the same procrastinating air, his hands in his pockets and his eyes
turned, right and left, to the pictures. The gallery was so long that
this transit took some little time, especially as there was a moment when
he stopped to admire the fine Gainsborough. "He says Mrs. St. George has
been the making of him," the girl continued in a voice slightly lowered.

"Ah he's often obscure!" Paul laughed.

"Obscure?" she repeated as if she heard it for the first time. Her eyes
rested on her other friend, and it wasn't lost upon Paul that they
appeared to send out great shafts of softness. "He's going to speak to
us!" she fondly breathed. There was a sort of rapture in her voice, and
our friend was startled. "Bless my soul, does she care for him like
_that_?--is she in love with him?" he mentally enquired. "Didn't I tell
you he was eager?" she had meanwhile asked of him.

"It's eagerness dissimulated," the young man returned as the subject of
their observation lingered before his Gainsborough. "He edges toward us
shyly. Does he mean that she saved him by burning that book?"

"That book? what book did she burn?" The girl quickly turned her face to
him.

"Hasn't he told you then?"

"Not a word."

"Then he doesn't tell you everything!" Paul had guessed that she pretty
much supposed he did. The great man had now resumed his course and come
nearer; in spite of which his more qualified admirer risked a profane