"Is how I can possibly be second to both of them. Dysart, I confess, has my sympathies, but if Beauclerk were to appear first upon the field and implore my assistance I feel I should have a delicacy about refusing him." "Freddy," says his wife, reprovingly. "Oh, as for that," says Joyce, with a frown, "I do think men are the most troublesome things on earth." She burst out presently. "When one isn't loving them, one is hating them." "How many of them at a time?" asks her brother-in-law with deep interest. "Not more than two, Joyce, please. I couldn't grasp any more. My intellect is of a very limited order." "So is mine, I think," says Joyce, with a tired little sigh. Monkton, although determined to treat the matter lightly, looks very sorry for her. Evidently she is out of joint with the whole world at present. "How did Lady Baltimore take it?" asks he, with all the careless air of one asking a question on some unimportant subject. "She was angry with Mr. Beauclerk for not leaving me at the inn, and coming home himself." "Unsisterly woman!" "She was quite right, after all," says Mrs. Monkton, who had defended Beauclerk herself, but cannot bear to hear another take his part. "And, Dysart--how did he take it?" asks Monkton, smiling. "I don't see how he should take it, anyway," says Joyce, coldly. "Not even with soda water?" says her brother-in-law. "Of course, it would be too much to expect him to take it neat. You broke it gently to him I hope." "Ah, you don't understand Mr. Dysart," says the girl, rising abruptly. "I did not understand him until yesterday." "Is he so very abstruse?" "He is very insolent," says Miss Kavanagh, with a sudden touch of fire, that makes her sister look at her with some uneasiness. "I see," says Mr. Monkton, slowly. He still, unfortunately, looks amused. "One never does know anybody until he or she gives way to a towering passion. So he gave you a right good scolding for being caught in the rain with Beauclerk. A little unreasonable, surely; but lovers never yet were famous for their common sense. That little ingredient was forgotten in their composition. And so he gave you a lecture?" "Well, he is not likely to do it again," says she slowly.