"Yes—that is, as far as I could look over them. Mr. Glyn was with me." "Oh, he has forgiven you again!" "Certainly not," said Nelly, with a touch of indignation. "_He_ has not forgiven me, for I never provoked a quarrel with him in my life. He has come to his senses, that is all; and he is no sooner come to them than he is off again. But this is the final blow; he will never get over this." "This what?" "My disappearance from London without telling him. I go back. He comes to see me; is surprised, offended; wants me to be penitent for having annoyed him by my silence. Of course I am not. Then he becomes angry, demands to know where I have been. I tell him that is my business, and he goes off in a fury. _That’s_ nothing new. But then he sends me a formal note, saying that unless I write to him and explain my absence from London he will never see me again." "Which you will do?" "How could I without telling him about you?" "Say you went to visit a friend." "Then he says, ’What friend?’ with a face as black as thunder. I reply that I won’t be subjected to his suspicions. He retorts that he is not suspicious; but that common-sense, and what not, and what not. I tell him that he dare not talk to a lady of his own class in the way he talks to me; and that it is because I am an actress that he is suspicious, taking up the vulgar prejudices against actresses. Now, all the time I have known him, I don’t think we ever passed a day without having a quarrel about the profession." "Your acquaintanceship must have been agreeable?" "It has. There is nothing both of us like so much as quarrelling and making-up. For my part, I couldn’t bear to have a sweetheart always pleasant, and reasonable, and sensible. I like one who is madly in love, who does extravagant things, who quarrels fearfully, and gets frantic with delight when you let him be friends again." "But the very last time we spoke of Mr. Glyn you said he and you would never get on together, because he wanted those very virtues of solidity, and common-sense, and manly forbearance. You said he was too like yourself." "Did I say so? Well, I have a different explanation of it every day. I only know that we perpetually quarrel, and that the making-up of quarrels is very nice." "What would you do if I were to give you £500 a-year?" "Go to Paris, and drive in the Bois de Boulogne with a pair of ponies," replied Nelly, with admirable precision. "Wouldn’t you marry Mr. Glyn, leave the stage, and be comfortable in some small house at Hampstead?" "No," she said, frankly; "I haven’t got the domestic faculty. I should worry his life out in a few months." "What do you say, then, to going with me to America? I mean to leave England for a long time—for some years—and I shall spend most of the time in America, visiting the places my mother and I used to know." "You are going to leave England?" said Nelly, looking up with earnest, curious eyes. "Yes."