"Yes," says Perpetua again. "Miss Wynter is in my care at present," says Sir Hastings, coming indolently forward. "Shall I take you to Lady Baring?" asks he, addressing Perpetua with a suave smile. "She will come with me," says the professor, with cold decision. "A command!" says Sir Hastings, laughing lightly. "See what it is, Miss Wynter, to have a hard-hearted guardian." He shrugs his shoulders. Perpetua makes him a little bow, and follows the professor out of the conservatory. "If you are tired," says the professor, somewhat curtly, and without looking at her, "I should think the best thing you could do would be to go to bed!" This astounding advice receives but little favor at Miss Wynter's hands. "I am tired of your brother," says she promptly. "He is as tiresome a creation as I know--but not of your sister's party; and--I'm too old to be sent to bed, even by a _Guardian_!!" She puts a very big capital to the last word. "I don't want to send you to bed," says the professor simply. "Though I think little girls like you----" "I am not a little girl," indignantly. "Certainly you are not a big one," says he. It is an untimely remark. Miss Wynter's hitherto ill-subdued anger now bursts into flame. "I can't help it if I'm not big," cries she. "It isn't my fault. I can't help it either that papa sent me to you. _I_ didn't want to go to you. It wasn't my fault that I was thrown upon your hands. And--and"--her voice begins to tremble--"it isn't my fault either that you _hate_ me." "That I--hate you!" The professor's voice is cold and shocked. "Yes. It is true. You need not deny it. You _know_ you hate me." They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go, and are, for the moment, virtually alone. "Who told you that I hated you?" asks the professor in a peremptory sort of way. "No," says she, shaking her head, "I shall not tell you that, but I have heard it all the same." "One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen," Curzon's face is a little pale now. "And--I can guess who has been talking to you." "Why should I not listen? It is true, is it not?" She looks up at him. She seems tremulously anxious for the answer. "You want me to deny it then?" "Oh, no, _no_!" she throws out one hand with a little gesture of mingled anger and regret. "Do you think I want you to _lie_ to me? There I am wrong. After all," with a half smile, sadder than most sad smiles because of the youth and sweetness of it, "I do not blame you. I _am_ a trouble, I suppose, and all troubles are hateful. I"--holding out her hand--"shall take your advice, I think, and go to bed." "It was bad advice," says Curzon, taking the hand and holding it. "Stay up, enjoy yourself, dance----" "Oh! I am not dancing," says she as if offended. "Why not?" eagerly, "Better dance than sleep at your age. You--you mistook me. Why go so soon?" She looks at him with a little whimsical expression.