Miss Byrne had not had her magnificent eyes given her for nothing. Very early in life she had learned how to make use of them. After that one full, unveiled look into Van Duren's eyes when she invited him to take tea with her, she kept her own eyes carefully under subjection. He could not keep his away from her, a fact of which Miriam was perfectly conscious; but now that she had got him there, seated opposite to her, she seemed to have become all at once shy, timid, and all but speechless. Now and then he caught a momentary, half-startled glance aimed at him from under the shadow of her long lashes, but that was all. She seemed to turn her eyes anywhere, rather than look him full in the face. He was quite at a loss what to say. What bond of sympathies, tastes, or ideas, as he asked himself, could there be in common between a man like him and that charming creature opposite? There were a great many subjects that he knew a great deal about, but he could not call to mind one that would be likely to have the faintest possible interest for Miss Byrne. Still, it was requisite that he should say something, or she would think him no better than a mummy. He looked round the room: there were a number of books scattered about. "Are you fond of reading, Miss Byrne?" he asked, suddenly: as good an opening, under the circumstances, as he could possibly have found. "Yes, very--when I can get the sort of book I like." "May I ask what sort of book it is that you do like?" "Oh, novels of course: a sort of literature for which, I daresay, you care nothing." "Well, I am certainly not a novel reader. But, were I a young lady, I daresay I should be. You like love-stories, of course?" "Yes; love-stories. Having had no experience in that line myself, it is only natural that I should like to read about it in others." "I thought that all young ladies nowadays could graduate and take honours in the Art of Love long before they were twenty." "A rule is proved by its exceptions. I am one of the exceptions." "How nice it must be to be able to write love-stories that you know will be read by some thousands of young ladies!" "But if an author in every case writes only from his own experience, what a fearful experience must his be!" "I apprehend that in such a case a writer is like a clever violinist. He may play to the public on one string as long as he likes, if only his variations are sufficiently amusing not to weary them." "Yes, I daresay there is really a very great sameness in such matters," said Miriam, with well-feigned simplicity. "And yet I suppose it hardly matters how poor a love-story may be; the vivid imagination of your sex supplies all deficiencies, and clothes it with whatever warmth and colour it may otherwise lack." "I am not so sure on that point. But I am afraid you are getting beyond my depth, Mr. Van Duren. For my own part, I have not much imagination. I am very, very matter-of-fact."