_Bartlett._--"Oh, the greatest of them! But don't mind. Wait! I'll try to tell you what I mean. I won't make you stand, while I talk. Here!" He wheels up in front of the picture one of the haircloth sofas; Constance mechanically sinks down upon it, and he takes his place at her side; she bends upon him a look of smiling amusement. "I can put my meaning best, I think, in the form of allegory. Do you like allegory, Miss Wyatt?" _Constance._--"Yes. That is, not very much." _Bartlett_.--"Oh! You don't like allegory! Upon second thoughts, I don't myself. We will not try allegory. We will try a supposed case. I think that's always the best way, don't you?" _Constance._--"No, I don't like any sort of indirection. I believe the straightforward way is the best." _Bartlett._--"Yes, so do I; but it's impossible. We _must_ try a supposed case." _Constance_, laughing.--"Well!" _Bartlett._--"Ah! I can't say anything if you laugh. It's a serious matter." _Constance_, with another burst of laughter.--"I should never have thought so." With a sudden return of her old morbid mood: "I beg your pardon for laughing. What right have I to laugh? Go on, Mr. Bartlett, and I will listen as I should have done. I am ashamed." _Bartlett._--"No, no! That won't do! You mustn't take me so seriously as that! Oh, Miss Wyatt, if I could only be so much your friend, your fool,--I don't care what,--as to banish that look, that tone from you for ever!" _Constance._--"Why do you care?" _Bartlett._--"Why do I care?" _Constance._--"Yes. Why should you mind whether so weak and silly a thing as I is glad or sad? I can't understand. Why have you had so much patience with me? Why do you take all this trouble on my account, and waste your time on me? Why"-- _Bartlett_, starting up.--"_Why_ do I do it?" He walks away to the other side of the room with signs of great inward struggle; then he swiftly returns to her side where she has risen and stands near the sofa, and seizes her hand. "Well, I will tell you why. No, no! I can't! It would be"-- _General Wyatt_, behind his newspaper.--"Outrageous! Gross violation of good faith! Infernal shame!" The General concludes these observations with a loud, prolonged, and very stertorous respiration. _Constance_, running to him.--"Why, papa, what _do_ you mean? Oh poor papa! He's asleep, and in _such_ a wretched position!" From which she hastens to move him, while Bartlett, recovering from the amaze in which the appositeness of the General's remarks had plunged him, breaks into a harsh "Ha! ha!" Constance turns and advances upon him in threatening majesty: "Did you _laugh_, Mr. Bartlett?" _Bartlett_, after a moment's dismay.--"Well, I don't know whether you call it laughing. I smiled." _Constance_, with increasing awfulness: "_Why_ did you laugh, Mr. Bartlett?" _Bartlett._--"I--I--I can't say." _Constance._--"You were laughing at General Wyatt!" _Bartlett._--"Was there nothing to laugh at?"