"It won't do, Alice, repeating my question, for that is all you have done. I like you too well to be put off with mere words. You are changed, and without a cause--no, I could not say that--not without a cause. Circumstances are altered; you are in the great world now, and admired; you have wealth and titles at your feet--Mr. Longcluse with his millions, Lord Wynderbroke with his coronet." "And who told you that these gentlemen were at my feet?" she exclaimed, with a flash from her fine eyes, that reminded him of moments of pretty childish anger, long ago. "If I am changed--and perhaps I am--such speeches as that would quite account for it. You accuse me of caprice--has any one ever accused you of impertinence?" "It is quite true, I deserve your rebuke. I have been speaking as freely as if we were back again at Arden Court, or Ryndelmere, and ten years of our lives were as a mist that rolls away." "That's a quotation from a song of Tennyson's." "I don't know what it is from. Being melancholy myself, I say the words because they are melancholy." "Surely you can find some friend to console you in your affliction." "It is not easy to find a friend at any time, much less when things go wrong with us." "It is very hard if there is really no one to comfort you. Certainly _I_ sha'n't try anything so hopeless as comforting a person who is resolved to be miserable. 'There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not if I could, be gay.' There's a quotation for you, as you like verses--particularly what I call moping verses." "Come, Alice! this is not like you; you are not so unkind as your words would seem; you are not cruel, Alice--you are cruel to no one else, only to me, your old friend." "I have said nothing cruel," said Miss Alice, looking on the grass before her; "cruelty is too sublime a phrase. I don't think I have ever experienced cruelty in my life; and I don't think it likely that you have; I certainly have never been cruel to any one. I'm a very good-natured person, as my birds and squirrel would testify if they could." She laughed. "I suppose people call that cruel which makes them suffer very much; it may be but a light look, or a cold word, but still it may be more than years of suffering to another. But I don't think, Alice, you ought to be so with me. I think you might remember old times a little more kindly." "I remember them very kindly--as kindly as you do. We were always very good friends, and always, I daresay, shall be. _I_ sha'n't quarrel. But I don't like heroics, I think they are so unmeaning. There may be people who like them very well and---- There is Richard, I think, and he has thrown away his mallet. If his game is over, he will come now, and Lady May doesn't want the people to stay late; she is going into town, and I stay with her to-night. We are going to the Derby to-morrow." "I am going also--it was so kind of her!--she asked me to be of her party," said Vivian Darnley.