"Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever you sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won't mention your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can't speak of you to any one; and no one speaks to me----" "If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville essayed, in dreary jest. "Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it's that that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in circumstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs. Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amusement, you laugh at me! If you don't understand it all, I'm sure _I_ don't." "Imogene!" "No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You don't care for me." "Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the past fortnight. "And I would have made any--_any_ sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn't have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come to me for a little sympathy." "O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me. But you mustn't think of it. I dare say it will be different; I've no doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I--" He did not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed for her. "No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were now uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will appreciate your generosity." "Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't _propose_ doing for people." She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_ are. It seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own mother to me. Do you call that noble?" Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to her own conscience. But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said, "Oh no; that was a mistake." "Because, if you do, you shall--to punish me." "My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?"