the fact that she ll be sure to select one who can
be trusted to be nasty to me. My only interest is
in your doing what she wants. You shan't be so
beastly poor, my darling," Mr. Croy declared, " if
I can help it."

"Well then, good-bye, papa," the girl said after
a reflection on this that had perceptibly ended for
her in a renunciation of further debate. " Of
course you understand that it may be for long."

Her companion, hereupon, had one of his finest
inspirations. " Why not, frankly, for ever? You
must do me the justice to see that I don't do things,
that I ve never done them, by halves that if I
offer you to efface myself, it's for the final, fatal
sponge that I ask, well saturated and well ap
plied."

She turned her handsome, quiet face upon him at
such length that it might well have been for the
last time. " I don't know what you re like."

"No more do I, my dear. I ve spent my life in
trying, in vain, to discover. Like nothing more's
the pity. If there had been many of us, and we
could have found each other out, there's no know
ing what we mightn't have done. But it doesn't
matter now. Good-bye, love." He looked even not
sure of what she would wish him to suppose on the
subject of a kiss, yet also not embarrassed by his
uncertainty.

She forbore in fact for a moment longer to clear
it up. " I wish there were some one here who

[[22]]

p021 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p022w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p023

v?