know them?" And she beamed on him pleasantly.

"Know them?" Charles answered. "Know them! Oh, of course, I know
them. They're old favourites of mine--in fact, I adore Wordsworth."
(I doubt whether Charles has ever in his life read a line of poetry,
except Doss Chiderdoss in the Sporting Times.) He took the book
and glanced at them. "Ah, charming, charming!" he said, in his most
ecstatic tone. But his eyes were on the lady, and not on the poet.

I saw in a moment how things stood. No matter under what disguise
that woman appeared to him, and whether he recognised her or not,
Charles couldn't help falling a victim to Madame Picardet's
attractions. Here he actually suspected her; yet, like a moth
round a candle, he was trying his hardest to get his wings singed!
I almost despised him with his gigantic intellect! The greatest
men are the greatest fools, I verily believe, when there's a woman
in question.

The husband strolled up by this time, and entered into conversation
with us. According to his own account, his name was Forbes-Gaskell,
and he was a Professor of Geology in one of those new-fangled
northern colleges. He had come to Seldon rock-spying, he said, and
found much to interest him. He was fond of fossils, but his special
hobby was rocks and minerals. He knew a vast deal about cairngorms
and agates and such-like pretty things, and showed Charles quartz
and felspar and red cornelian, and I don't know what else, in the
crags on the hillside. Charles pretended to listen to him with the
deepest interest and even respect, never for a moment letting him
guess he knew for what purpose this show of knowledge had been
recently acquired. If we were ever to catch the man, we must not
allow him to see we suspected him. So Charles played a dark game.
He swallowed the geologist whole without question.

Most of that morning we spent with them on the hillside. Charles
took them everywhere and showed them everything. He pretended to be
polite to the scientific man, and he was really polite, most polite,
to the poetical lady. Before lunch time we had become quite friends.

The Clays were always easy people to get on with; and, bar their
roguery, we could not deny they were delightful companions. Charles
asked them in to lunch. They accepted willingly. He introduced them
to Amelia with sundry raisings of his eyebrows and contortions
of his mouth. "Professor and Mrs. Forbes-Gaskell," he said,
half-dislocating his jaw with his v