Louise looked at him wonderingly for an instant, and then gave way to a frank, irrepressible laugh, which lent her delicate but rather set little face all the color he had missed. Partially relieved by her unconcern, and yet mortified that he had only provoked her sense of the ludicrous, he tried to laugh also. “Then, to be quite plain,” said Louise, wiping her now humid eyes, “you want me to understand that you really didn't pay sufficient attention to hear correctly! Thank you; that's a pretty English compliment, I suppose.” “I dare say you wouldn't call it 'philandering'?” “I certainly shouldn't, for I don't know what 'philandering' means.” Mainwaring could not reply, with Richelieu, “You ought to know”; nor did he dare explain what he thought it meant, and how he knew it. Louise, however, innocently solved the difficulty. “There's a country song I've heard Minty sing,” she said. “It runs-- Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin', Every one for his true love a-sarchin' Choose your true love now or never. . . . Have you been listening to her also?” “No,” said Mainwaring, with a sudden incomprehensible, but utterly irrepressible, resolution; “but I'M 'a-marchin',' you know, and perhaps I must 'choose my true love now or never.' Will you help me, Miss Macy?” He drew gently near her. He had become quite white, but also very manly, and it struck her, more deeply, thoroughly, and conscientiously sincere than any man who had before addressed her. She moved slightly away, as if to rest herself by laying both hands upon the back of the chair. “Where do you expect to begin your 'sarchin''?” she said, leaning on the chair and tilting it before her; “or are you as vague as usual as to locality? Is it at some 'Mr. Johnson' or 'Mr. Pico,' or--” “Here,” he interrupted boldly. “I really think you ought to first tell my cousin that you are going away to-morrow,” she said, with a faint smile. “It's such short notice. She's just in there.” She nodded her pretty head, without raising her eyes, towards the hall. “But it may not be so soon,” said Mainwaring. “Oh, then the 'sarchin'' is not so important?” said Louise, raising her head, and looking towards the hall with some uneasy but indefinable feminine instinct. She was right; the sitting-room door opened, and Mrs. Bradley made her smiling appearance. “Mr. Mainwaring was just looking for you,” said Louise, for the first time raising her eyes to him. “He's not only sent off Mr. Richardson, but he's going away himself to-morrow.”