“You have _not_ offended me,” said she, coldly. “Well, I mean, than I 'd pain you,--than I 'd say anything that should distress you. You know, after all, it was n't quite fair to push me so hard.” “Are you forgetting, sir,” broke she in, haughtily, “that you have really told me next to nothing, and that I am left to gather from mere insinuations that there is something in our condition your delicacy shrinks from explaining?” “Not a bit of it,” chimed he in, quickly. “The best men in England are on the turf, and a good book on the Oaks is n't within reach of the income-tax. Your father's dealings are with all the swells in the Peerage.” “So there is a partnership in the business, sir,” said she, with a quiet irony; “and is the Honorable Mr. Beecher one of the company?” “Well--ha--I suppose--I ought to say yes,” muttered he, in deep confusion. “We do a stroke of work together now and then--on the square, of course, I mean.” “Pray don't expose the secrets of the firm, sir. I am even more interested than yourself that they should be conducted with discretion. There is only one other question I have to ask; and as it purely concerns myself, you 'll not refuse me a reply. Knowing our station in life, as I now see you know it, by what presumption did you dare to trifle with my girlish ignorance, and lead me to fancy that I might yet move in a sphere which in your heart you knew I was excluded from?” Overwhelmed with shame and confusion, and stunned by the embarrassment of a dull man in a difficulty, Beecher stood, unable to utter a word. “To say the least, sir, there was levity in this,” said she, in a tone of sorrowful meaning; “but, perhaps, you never meant it so.” “Never, upon my oath, never!” cried he, eagerly. “Whatever I said, I uttered in all frankness and sincerity. I know London town just as well as any man living, and I 'll stand five hundred to fifty there's not your equal in it,--and that's giving the whole field against the odds. All I say is, you shall go to the Queen's Drawing-room--” “I am not likely to do so, sir,” said she, with a haughty gesture, and left the room. CHAPTER XXXIV. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE Three days passed over,--three days varied with all the incidents that go to make up a longer existence,--and Beecher and his fair charge were still in Aix. If they forbore to speak to each other of the strange situation in which they found themselves, they were not the less full of it. Neither telegraph nor letter came from Davis, and Beecher's anxiety grew hourly greater. There was scarcely an eventuality his mind had not pictured. Davis was arrested and carried off to prison in Brussels,--was waylaid and murdered in the Ardennes,--was ill, dying in some unheard-of village,--involved in some other row, and obliged to keep secret,--arrested on some old charge; in fact, every mishap that a fertile fancy could devise had befallen him, and now only remained the question what was he himself to do with Lizzy Davis.