Is this the woman who cried herself sick last night over memories of the so recent past? In this mobile nature, is there nothing that one can lay hold of? "Mammy and I get an infinity of amusement out of them," continues she, still playfully, but faltering a little under the severity of his look; "oh, we know a great deal about them all; and those that we do not know about we make stories for!" "Indeed!" His tone is so curt that the stream of her gaiety dries up under it, and she relapses into silence, looking towards the flashing sea, and the ficus-tree, that is casting its now grateful shade. CHAPTER IV. "You said just now that seeing me brought things back to you." It is partly remorse at having snubbed her, and partly perversity, which dictates this sentence on Jim's part. The perversity is, perhaps, the predominating element in his motive--a perversity which, having chilled her away from the subject when she was eagerly seeking an opening to it, now forces her to return to it. She starts a little. "Yes--yes," she answers; "but 'brought things back' is not quite the right phrase; they"--her voice growing low and tremulous--"had not very far to come." The quiver in her voice annoys him almost as much as Byng's tears used to do. "If you would like to ask me any questions," he says stiffly, "I am ready to answer them." "Are you?" she cries hungrily; "oh, that is kind of you! but, then, you always _were_ kind; but not here"--looking apprehensively round--"I could not trust myself to talk about--about him here; I--I should break down, and nothing"--with a smile that, though watery, is still humorous--"would induce me to make a fool of myself before the widow Wadman." Then, seeing him look at a loss: "Come indoors!" she says impulsively, standing up, and half stretching out her hand as if to draw him after her. "Come into our salon--no, you need not be afraid; we shall have it all to ourselves; father and mother have gone out for their usual constitutional on the Boulevard Mustapha." He follows her silently, and neither speaks till they find themselves _tête-à-tête_ in the private apartment of the Le Marchants. It is on the _rez-de-chaussée_, a suite of three little whitewashed rooms, transmogrified from their original hotel nakedness by flowers and brocade bits. Three large green jars on the chimney-piece, full of generous rose-branches, and boughs of salvia and iris, and stalwart yellow jessamine, make the air sweetly and lightly perfumed. On the table is a litter of Tauchnitz novels, disastrously old English papers, the little scurrilous Algerian sheet, and, lastly, Elizabeth's workbasket--the big workbasket which Jim had last seen standing on the floor in the _entresol_, at the Piazza d'Azeglio, with its contents strewn all over his friend's prostrate body. At the sight a bitter smile breaks over his face.