"Of course; but it was she who found Luigi for us, you see. She can't always know. As far as Charlie Hunt is concerned, I don't want you to think that we think any less of him than before. He's good and kind as can be, and does ever so many nice things for us. We were at his apartment the other day, where he had a tea-party expressly for us, with his cousins there, and Mr. Landini and two or three others. And then when he heard me say I like dogs he promised to give me a dog, one of those lovely clown dogs,--poodles,--with their hair cut in a fancy pattern, when he can lay his hand on a real beauty." "Mrs. Hawthorne"--Gerald almost lifted himself off his seat with the emphasis of his cry,--"Don't let him give you a dog!" She looked at him in amazement. "Why, what's wrong?" "Don't! don't! Can't you see that you must not let him give you a dog?" "No, I can't. Why on earth?" "After what you said a few minutes ago," he stammered, feeling blindly for reasons, "which shows that you have something to complain of in his conduct toward you, you ought not to allow him to give you a dog. A dog--you don't understand, and I can't make you. It will be too awful!" "You surely are the queerest man I have ever known," she said sincerely. To which he did not reply. He restrained himself from blurting out that Charlie Hunt, for such and such reasons, could never deserve the extreme privilege of giving her a dog. Leslie had once casually spoken the true word about Charlie. "Charlie has no real inside," she had said, and continued, nevertheless, to like him well enough. He was young, handsome, in his way attractive. Most people liked him to just that extent--well enough; few went beyond, unless early in the acquaintance. He so systematically did what would be most useful to himself that it was difficult to preserve illusions about his powers of devotion or unselfishness. He had lived as one of the family with his aunt and cousins till he found himself desiring an increase of personal liberty; then an occasion presenting itself to make a really good arrangement with an Italian family of decent middle class with their best rooms to let, he had set up bachelor quarters, and ceasing to be an inmate of his aunt's house, retained unusually little sense of tie with it. "Charlie might be nicer about going to places with us," Francesca openly grumbled, "seeing he's the nearest we've got to a brother." All this was formlessly in Gerald's mind--this and much more--when his spirit groaned that Charlie should be giving Aurora a dog. Mrs. Hawthorne was looking at him, trying to make him out. She could not. One thing, however, was plain, and it being so plain simplified all. He felt actual pain because Charlie Hunt was going to give her a dog. The wherefore it was vain to seek. But she had no desire to give pain of any kind, even by way of teasing him, to this funnily sensitive fellow whose shoulders looked so sharp under his coat.