“It _is_ a secret, and it is not a secret; and _you_ may not tell it me, though Féodorovna may! What dark sayings are these?” cries he, gaily, perfectly indifferent as to her mystery, though diverted at the pomp with which she is investing it. But his lady-love is not to be won to any answering lightness. “I see nothing to laugh at,” she says; and even in the rooky twilight he can perceive her frown. “I pity them from the bottom of my heart. One of the greatest misfortunes possible--yes, I really think I do not exaggerate--one of the greatest misfortunes possible has fallen upon them.” “Has the Candle begun to drop after all these years?” asks he, still incorrigibly flippant. She quickens her pace, as if to get away from him. “I have always known that there was something lacking in you.” “I have always known that there were a great many things lacking in me,” interrupts he, mending his pace too. “Even if I had not promised, nothing would induce me to tell to any one so unsympathetic----” “I do not want you to tell me! I do not care a button what has happened to them!” cries he, rudely, but half laughing. Bested in the attempt to outstrip her companion, Miss Carew stops short. “You would be sorry if you knew,” she throws out tantalizingly, unable to resist the temptation to go as near as possible to the line which she is resolved not to cross, and unworthily annoyed at the absence of pressure put upon her. “I should not,” replies her lover, with quiet conviction. “If it were anything that would make them less beastly prosperous, I should be glad.” “There was nothing ‘beastly prosperous’ about them to-day,” says she indignantly, as memory reconstructs the bitterly dripping tears of the one millionaire, and the stubby head clutched in short coarse hands of the other. He receives the information in silence, not wishing to make her more angry than she already is, and being really quite without interest as to the topic which engages her. Lavinia is obliged to give up the attempt to stimulate a curiosity which, after all, she has no right to gratify, and, thrusting her partisanship into her pocket, reluctantly changes the topic. “Have you found out why your father was so much put out at luncheon?” It is growing too dark to see his face, but she catches the instant change in his tone. “Yes.” “I told you that there must be some cause.” “Because he exceeded even his usual ample measure of incivility to me, do you mean?” There is very little bitterness in the voice or words, only a sort of regret mixed with some not quite ordinary quality of patience. “I felt sure that he had had something to ruffle him.” “He has always something to ruffle him. He has always _me_; but to-day, dear old chap, he had something more.” “What?”