“I’ve observed for myself,” she informed him, “that if we begin by genuinely feeling an emotion, but rigorously conceal it, we’re as like as not to end by feeling it no longer. It dies of suffocation. I’ve had that experience quite lately. There was a certain person whom I heartily despised and hated; and then, as chance would have it, I was thrown two or three times into his company; and for motives of expediency I disguised my antagonism. In the end, do you know, I found myself rather liking him?” “Oh, women are fearfully and wonderfully made,” he said. “And so are some men,” said she. “Could you oblige me with the name and address of a competent witch or warlock?” she added irrelevantly. “What under the sun can you want with such an unholy thing?” he exclaimed. “I want a hate-charm—something that I can take at night to revive my hatred of the man I was speaking of.” “Look here,” he warned her, “I’ve not come all this distance, under a scorching sun, to stand here now and talk of another man. Cultivate a contemptuous indifference towards him. Banish him from your mind and conversation.” “I’ll try,” she consented; “though, if you were familiar with the circumstances, you’d recognise a certain difficulty in doing that.” She reached for her gloves, and began to put one on. “Will you be so good as to tell me the time of day?” He looked at his watch. “It’s nowhere near time for you to be moving yet.” “You must not trifle about affairs of state,” she said. “At a definite hour I have business at the palace.” “Oh, for that matter, so have I. But it’s half-past four. To call half-past four a definite hour would be to do a violence to the language.” “It is earlier than I thought,” she admitted, discontinuing her operation with the glove. He smiled approval. “Your heart is in the right place, after all. It would have been inhuman to abandon me. Oh, yes, pleasantry apart, I am in a condition of mind in which solitude spells misery. And yet I am on speaking terms with but three living people whose society I prefer to it.” “You are indeed in sad case, then,” she compassionated him. “But why should solitude spell misery? A man of wit like you should have plenty of resources within himself.” “Am I a man of wit?” he asked innocently. Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “What is your opinion?” “I don’t know,” he reflected. “Perhaps I might have been, if I had met a woman like you earlier in life.” “At all events,” she laughed, “if you are not a man of wit, it is not for lack of courage. But why does solitude spell misery? Have you great crimes upon your conscience?” “No, nothing so amusing. But when one is alone, one thinks; and when one thinks—that way madness lies.” “Then do you never think when you are engaged in conversation?” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “You should be able to judge of that by the quality of my remarks. At any rate, I feel.” “What do you feel?”