“_Do anything more!_” echoes the mother, with an accent of the acutest scorn of this fresh attempt at solace. “Why, what more would you have her do? What more could she do? Unless----” She breaks off abruptly, and both know that she has been on the brink of an utterance more suited, in its crude vernacular, to her former than to her present estate. Both feel relieved that it has remained in the domain of the implied; and, with a tactful fear lest the crestfallen fellow-creature before her may be betrayed into some outburst of which she may later repent on her return from the regions of primæval emotions to the upholstered “reception-rooms” of gentility, Miss Carew hurries over her adieux. Yet that “hurry” is scarcely the word to be applied to her visit taken as a whole is brought home to her by the look of beast-and-bird bedtime spread over the evening world as she gets out into it. “Are you ready?” she asks, addressing the back of a man-person whom the first turn in the Park Road reveals kicking pebbles ahead of her in obvious waiting. “_Am I ready?_” rejoins he, wheeling round, with good-tempered upbraiding. “You told me to be here at 5.30. It is now 7.15; and you ask, _Am I ready?_” Lavinia wisely attempts no defence. “Well, _are you_?” she asks, smiling, but not coquettishly. Of what use is it to be coquettish to a person in the same house, with whom you have always lived, and your engagement to be married to whom has had all the gilt taken off its gingerbread by the fact that you cannot remember the time when you were not engaged to him, and who is, to boot, your first cousin? They walk on in silence for a few moments, she expecting and a little dreading to be questioned, and be confident that she will volunteer an explanation if he does not ask for one. But she refrains. “Well, were they as good as usual? Have you no conversational plums to reward me with?” Lavinia winces. Is this a moment to remind her of how often she has served up the pretensions and vulgarities of the family whom she has just quitted on such affecting terms for the joint amusement of herself and her _fiancé_? “Don’t!” she answers hurriedly. “You do not know how you jar!” He raises his eyebrows. “I know how cold I am,” he rejoins, still with perfect temper, “and I shall be very glad to know why I _jar_, if you will only tell me.” “That is just what I can’t,” says she, wrinkling her forehead; “but you may take my word for it that you do. You ring dreadfully out of tune.” “In point of fact, one of your not uncommon waves of hatred for me is going over you,” replies he, resignedly. “I know that they are never to be accounted for.” “No; I do not feel any special hatred for you to-night,” replies she, dispassionately. “But I can’t tell you what is not my secret. In point of fact, it is not really a secret at all, as Féodorovna will certainly proclaim it to you next time you meet her; but _I_ can’t tell it.”