her
engagement. It was with them, as in former days it had been at New
York. She whispered pleasant words to him, touching his arm now and
again with her finger as she spoke, seeming ever better inclined to
listen than to speak. Now and again she referred, after some slightest
fashion, to little circumstances that had occurred between them, to
some joke, some hour of tedium, some moment of delight; but it was
done as one man might do it to another,--if any man could have done it
so pleasantly. There was a scent which he had once approved, and now
she bore it on her handkerchief. There was a ring which he had once
given her, and she wore it on the finger with which she touched his
sleeve. With his own hands he had once adjusted her curls, and each
curl was as he had placed it. She had a way of shaking her head, that
was very pretty,--a way that might, one would think, have been dangerous
at her age, as likely to betray those first grey hairs which will come
to disturb the last days of youth. He had once told her in sport to be
more careful. She now shook her head again, and, as he smiled, she
told him that she could still dare to be careless. There are a
thousand little silly softnesses which are pretty and endearing
between acknowledged lovers, with which no woman would like to
dispense, to which even men who are in love submit sometimes with
delight; but which in other circumstances would be vulgar,--and to the
woman distasteful. There are closenesses and sweet approaches, smiles
and nods and pleasant winkings, whispers, innuendoes and hints, little
mutual admirations and assurances that there are things known to those
two happy ones of which the world beyond is altogether ignorant. Much
of this comes of nature, but something of it sometimes comes by art.
Of such art as there may be in it Mrs Hurtle was a perfect master. No
allusion was made to their engagement,--not an unpleasant word was
spoken; but the art was practised with all its pleasant adjuncts. Paul
was flattered to the top of his bent; and, though the sword was
hanging over his head, though he knew that the sword must fall,--must
partly fall that very night,--still he enjoyed it.

There are men who, of their natures, do not like women, even though
they may have wives and legions of daughters, and be surrounded by
things feminine in all the affairs of their lives. Others again have
their strongest affinities and sympathies with women, and are rarely
altoget