Sir Jasper Dehorsey now believed that he might be as impudent as he chose; but the girl's manner nevertheless bewildered him. 'Why, sir, do you stare at me so?' she asked. 'May I not look at you?' 'Not as you do,' she replied, with hauteur. 'You grudge me that pleasure?' 'I do not understand all this!' she exclaimed, as she started from her chair and felt a difficulty in restraining her tears. 'Do be seated. If Cadbury does not appear in five minutes, I shall go in search of him.' 'Or kindly get me a voiture to the Hôtel St. Antoine.' 'So it is there they hang out,' thought he. 'Do you often go to the theatre?' 'Not now.' 'Ah, you should see Antwerp when it is _en fête_.' 'When is that?' 'In the carnival time.' Then he continued, 'And how do you like this city by the Scheldt?' 'Not at all,' she replied, curtly. 'Indeed! You have been at the opera, of course?' 'No.' 'Or the picture galleries?' 'No.' 'What! Have you not seen the Royal Museum, the antiquities at the Steyne, and the Musée Plantin-Moretus?' 'I have seen none of those things.' 'Nor the splendid churches, and all the rest of it?' 'I have been nowhere,' replied Alison, thinking sadly of her father's sick-bed. 'How this old snake has kept this lovely girl all to himself!' was the thought of Sir Jasper, in whose heart envy now mingled with exultation. 'How I should like to show you all these places, and Brussels too!' said he at length. 'I have often heard of the Musée Plantin, with its quaint old rococo furniture and antique pictures--the old-world air of the place--its stillness and gloomy seclusion,' said Alison. 'It is doocid slow. Still I should like to have the pleasure of showing it to you,' said he again, stooping over her chair, but seeking even then to throw her off her guard. 'The place itself is rather dark and gloomy with its high wainscots, oak carvings, ebony and ivory cabinets, faded tapestries, casement windows, and all the rest of it--said to be haunted by the ghosts of the funny old printers who lived there and printed the first Bible with old types which are yet there, and which it is said they come once a year at midnight to set up again, for the creak of the ancient presses is heard. But, be all that as it may, I don't know a more stunning place for a steady spoon or flirtation than the solemn old quadrangular Musée Plantin, with its suites of antique rooms, furnished with cushioned lounges, heavy curtains, and beds like tombs--like plumed hearses, or the old state-beds in Hampton Court--beds in which the dead Plantins slept three hundred years ago. By Jove, you must let me show you all that to-morrow. But as that duffer, old Cadbury, is so doocid long, had we not better have supper without him? Shall I order the waiter to serve it up?' he added, laying his hand upon the bell rope, as if her assent would follow of course.