“I believe that you would like to be always supine!” Lavinia answers, in a tone of wonder, and thinking at the same time, “What a charming head it is! how delicately modelled! what a finish in the moulding of the features! what a _spirituel_ expression, with something of the light malice of the classic Mercury!” _Spirituel!_ It is an adjective more often used in the feminine than the masculine gender. Oh, tricky gods! Why is not he feminine? What a delightful woman he would have made! “And you would like it too!” he rejoins, breaking into her reflections, with what sounds more like a statement than an inquiry; then, seeing her start apprehensively with the old fear of his gift of thought-reading, he adds, “I mean that you--that most ‘neat excellences’ like you, would wish to keep me always in a position to be fussed over, always prone; no, that is not the right word--“prone” means that one has fallen forwards on one’s face, like poor Dagon, doesn’t it?” He talks on with so evident an intention of removing any uncomfortable impression that his former speech may have made, that Lavinia, having by this time risen to give him his second cup of tea, lays her hand, with some dim sense of compunctious gratitude, upon his. “You are very glib to-night!” she says playfully. “Aren’t you chattering too much? You must be tired.” “No!” he answers, “or only a little; just pleasantly.” His eyes--how blue their whites are!--lift themselves with a sort of yearning, that yet seems to have none of the commotion of passion in it, to hers, and she feels that she ought to kiss him. If she think about it, she will never get herself up to the sticking-point; so, without a second’s delay, with the teapot still encumbering one hand, she takes the plunge and drops a little butterfly kiss somewhere about the roots of his soft curly hair. “Thank you, dear.” He asks for no repetition of the endearment; and she wonders shamefacedly whether it would have been better taste to omit it. “I think I’ll leave you now. You look tired!” “I am not tired; and you must not leave me; for I have something to say to you.” “Say it to-morrow.” “With your permission I will say it to-night.” With a little show of half-playful authority, he pulls her by the hand, which she has laid upon him before the doubtful enterprise of her kiss, on to the foot of his sofa, moving and contracting himself to make room for her. “Well, if you must, you must!” she answers, submitting, while a vertical line shows itself between her well-drawn, thin eyebrows. “I will not keep you long! All I want to say is, that, supposing I _do not_ get well----” “Why suppose anything so senseless?” she interrupts angrily. “It _is_ senseless, of course. I was reading a magazine article yesterday, on the subject of longevity, and, as far as I could make out, I have all the signs that indicate it, and several more besides!” “Then spare us your suppositions!” she interjects, almost roughly.