“I don’t see the oddness, myself,” returned Harry, speaking through his dressing-room door, which stood ajar; “there is a great difference between feeling spooney about a pretty cousin, when you’re living in the house with her, and have nothing better to do, and dangling after her to the neglect of your business, when she lives at one end of London and you at the other--when, moreover, she’s married to a dreadful old muff, antiquated enough to be her father, and slow enough to be the father of every fool in the kingdom. I think it’s easily accounted for by prose means, without adopting the poetical hypothesis of a romantic attachment--two fond young hearts blighted, and all that ‘Keepsake’ style of business; besides, Arthur’s a great deal too good a lawyer to fall in love; it’s only idle fellows like myself who commit such follies.” “You must go and call on Arthur to-morrow, and you will soon perceive by his manner whether he is averse to coming here; but mind you are very careful not to let him see that you suspect anything; I am quite sure he would be most sensitive on such a point,” observed Alice, in a tone in which you would caution a schoolboy against playing with gunpowder. “Keep your advice for you own benefit, most sententious Alice, seeing that you are the suspecting party, and that such an idea would never have occurred to my unassisted reason,” was Harry’s rejoinder; and the dinner-bell at that moment ringing, the conversation ceased. The next day, however, Arthur put an end to the controversy by making his appearance in Park Lane soon after luncheon. Although no one alluded to the circumstance, it was the first time he had set his foot in Mr. Crane’s house, or indeed seen Kate since her marriage. He looked pale and over-worked, and there was a restless excitement in his manner, which Alice’s quick eye at once discovered. Beyond this, however, there was nothing which tended in the slightest degree to confirm her in her suspicions. He apologised quietly and naturally to Kate for not having called oftener, adducing business as a good and sufficient reason for his remissness; then, turning to Alice, he informed her that she could not have chosen a more unfortunate time for her visit to London, at least, as far as he was concerned, as he was obliged to start the next morning for Naples, being sent out by the Foreign-Office on an affair of some importance, which, if he could bring the matter to a successful issue, might tend to his ultimate advancement. Kate, on the contrary, appeared nervous and ill at ease, and probably feeling that for once she could not rely on her self-command, took an early opportunity of quitting the room, leaving the brother and sister _tête-à-tête_.