"Why, I supposed--I didn't know--I don't see how he could have done it unless--" "He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. Elmore. "We saw it all along, but he never 'let on,' as he would say, about it, and we never meant to say anything, of course." "Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, "it has been a purely unconscious piece of cerebration." "Cerebration!" exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more scorn than she knew how to express. "I should think as much!" "Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so very unphilosophical." "Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still the same." She came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm round his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the head. Then she released him, and left him with another burst of derision. X. After this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feeling that he hated to see Hoskins again, and he was relieved when the sculptor failed to make his usual call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner either, and he did not reappear for several days. Then he merely said that he had been spending the time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was making some studies down there, and they all took up the old routine of their friendly life without embarrassment. At first it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy of Hoskins, and he thought that she resented his using her charm in his art; but before the evening wore away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long talk about home, and she took her place at the piano and played some of the war-songs that had begun to supersede the old negro melodies. Then she wandered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted over the keys, and ended with "Stop dat knockin'," in which Hoskins joined with his powerful bass in the recitative "Let me in," and Elmore himself had half a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as she struck the keys with a final crash, but lingered, as his fashion was when he had something to propose: if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be liked, he brought it in as if he had only happened to remember it. He now drew out a large, square, ceremonious-looking envelope, at which he glanced as if, after all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, "Oh, by the by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you'd tell me what to do about this thing. Here's something that's come to me in my official capacity, but it isn't exactly consular business,--if it was I don't believe I should ask _any_ lady for instructions,--and I don't know exactly what to do. It's so long since I corresponded with a princess that I don't even know how to answer her letter."