“Yes, really. You can’t deny that that’s an exhilarating little adventure.” “I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man’s embarrassment,” he reflected. “Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a sang froid! They’ll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and talk with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong afternoon cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint of their perplexity. They’ll brazen it out.” “That’s distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don’t you think?” he said. “Internally, poor dears, they’re very likely suffering agonies of discomfiture.” “We’ll hope they are. Could they decently do less?” said she. “And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,” he urged. “If I were a man in such a situation I’d throw myself upon the woman’s mercy. I’d say, ’Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory chooses to play the fool. If you’ve a spark of Christian kindness in your soul, you’ll come to my rescue with a little clue.’.rdquo; “If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I fear you’d throw yourself on her mercy in vain,” she warned him. “What is the good of tantalising people?” “Besides,” she continued, “the woman might reasonably feel slightly humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner.” “The humiliation surely would be all the man’s. Have you heard from the Wohenhoffens lately?” “The—what? The—who?” She raised her eyebrows. “The Wohenhoffens,” he repeated. “What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?” “Oh, nothing. My enquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge. It occurred to me vaguely that you might have worn a black domino at a masked ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn’t?” “I’ve a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I did,” she teased. “She was rather tall, like you, and she had grey eyes, and a nice voice, and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. She was monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have made her a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have always been anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her to marry me. I’m strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was she?” he pleaded. “If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?” she asked. “Try it and see.” “Ce n’est pas la peine. It occasionally happens that a woman’s already got a husband.” “She said she was an old maid.” “Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?” she cried. “Yes.” “Upon my word!” “Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so insipid as a young girl? Were you the woman of the black domino?” he persisted.