“You are wrong there,” replies Féodorovna’s mother with rueful shrewdness. “She is sure to tell us about it. Féo has an odd way of boasting about things that other people would be ashamed of!” “It is impossible to contradict this assertion, and with a passing wonder and pity for a love cursed with such good eyes,” Lavinia repeats, in despair of finding anything better, her already-tried-and-found-wanting anodyne. “Well, at all events, nothing will come of it.” “And what will her next move be? I ask you that! What will her next move be?” inquires Mrs. Prince, in dreary triumph. The pride of having proposed an insoluble riddle kindles a funeral torch in each eye. The question, as the too clear-sighted parent had expected, _stumps_ Miss Carew, nor can any of the hysterical indelicacies which pass through her mind as likely to illustrate Féodorovna’s future course be decently dressed enough to be presented as hypotheses to Féodorovna’s mother. It is the occasion of her dilemma who cuts it short by an entrance a good deal less aspen-like and deliberate than is usual in her case. It is, of course, an extravagant trick of fancy, but the impression is at once conveyed to at least one of the occupants of the drawing-room that Féodorovna has been kicked into the room. The pink umbrage in her silly face confirms the idea of some propelling force behind her, as does the excessive civility of the attendant Rupert. That the deferential _empressement_ of his manner is the cover for an inclination towards ungovernable, vexed laughter is suspected only by Lavinia. That some catastrophe has attended the visit of the young paraclete is obvious to the meanest observer; but it is not until after the Princes’ carriage has crunched and flashed away with Féodorovna reclining in swelling silence upon the cushion, and her mother casting glances of frightened curiosity at her infuriated profile that the details of the disaster reach Lavinia’s ears. Not immediately even then, since before she can besiege her cousin with terrified questions, he is summoned to his father; and it is fully half an hour before he rejoins her in the schoolroom. She has to wait again even then; since at her first allusion to the subject, he is seized with such _fou rire_ that he has to roll on his face on the old sofa before he can master the shoulder-shaking convulsions of his uncomfortable mirth. “What happened?” cries the girl, standing over her _fiancé’s_ prostrate figure in a fever of apprehension. “Oh, do get up, and stop laughing! What is there to laugh at? You are too stupid to live!” “I shall not live much longer!” replies the young man, rearing himself up into a sitting posture, and presenting a subdued but suddenly grave surface to his censor; “not if we are often to have such treats as this. I do not know why I laugh, for I never felt less hilarious in my life.” “You are as hysterical as a woman!” says Lavinia, with a frown.