'I am sure you are not aware of it, dear,' he says pleasantly, 'but your question has taken rather an offensive form. Prue _is_ crying, I regret to say; but why you should instantly conclude that it is I that have made her cry, I am at a loss to imagine. I think, Peg, I must refer you to 1 Corinthians xiii.' 'You used to tell me that _I_ always made her cry,' returns Peggy sternly; 'that _I_ was hard upon her; that she "needed very tender handling."' 'Did I indeed?' says the young man, with a sort of wondering interest. 'It shows how cautious one ought to be in one's judgment of others. Thank you for telling me, Peg!' 'What have you been talking about to make her cry?' repeats Peggy, with a sad pertinacity. 'She was not in the least inclined to cry when I went away. I never saw her more joyous, poor little soul!' 'I may return the compliment, dear,' retorts Freddy, carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and staring up with a brotherly familiarity into her still flushed and tear-betraying face from under the brim of Prue's garden-hat, which, as being more comfortable and wider-brimmed than his own, he has worn all afternoon. 'What have you been talking about to milady to make _you_ cry?' She puts up her hand with a hasty gesture. She had not known or thought about the ravages wrought on her face by her late weeping; but now that the consciousness of it has been brought home to her, she is for a moment put out of countenance. But in a second she has recovered herself. 'We were talking of _you_,' she replies gravely. 'Milady knows; she has found out about you and Prue.' Freddy has abandoned his prone posture; he is sitting up, lightly switching the end of his own boot with a small bamboo; Prue's hat, being capacious, veils his face almost entirely. 'I should have thought that the information would have come more gracefully from you,' continues Peggy coldly. 'I should have thought it would have been better if _you_ had told her.' 'If I had told her,' repeats Freddy dreamily, without looking up; 'after all, Peggy, there was not much to tell: "I love;" "I am loved." The whole scheme of Creation lies in those two phrases; but when you come to telling--to putting it into brutal words----' It is a warm evening, but Peggy feels a slight sensation of cold. 'It will have to be put into _brutal words_ some day or other,' she says doggedly, with an indignant emphasis on the three syllables quoted from Mr. Ducane's speech. '"Some day, some day!"' echoes he dreamily, humming the refrain of the hackneyed song. 'Of course it will,' lifting his head again, and staring at the heavens. 'Good Lord, Peggy, what a pace that upper strata of cloud is driving at! there must be a strong current up there, though it is so still down here. You know, dear, you and I have never been quite at one upon that head. I have always thought that it took the bloom off one's sacred things to blare them prematurely about.'