“I’m sorry for you, in truth I am,” he said despondently, “if you still love him as you admit, and I wish I could think that your policy of silence, or your policy of jealousy, or your policy of anything in the world would bring Philip Stanhope to his senses. But, alack, my dear! I fear ’tis all thrown away upon him, and that his inconstancy is irreclaimable. Why, at this very moment, while you are calculating a means to his reformation, he is, to my knowledge, scheming to have to his house here a country fancy of his, one Molly Davis, whom he calls his cousin.” She heard and stiffened. “A country fancy!” “O! I breathe no wrong of her,” he said; “and she may be his cousin--left-handed--for all I know. A sprightly wench, at least, that somehow met and tickled his humour; and he’ll have her to stay with him on that plea of kinship. But it’s for you to question him, if you will.” “_I!_” The white scorn of her! the lifted lip, and wrinkle in the little nose! “Did you not hear me say I had sworn never to speak to him again?” “Conditionally, that was.” “No longer. Never, and never, and never. In this house! Before my very face. O, it cannot be true!” “Well, perhaps he only jested.” She moved, and, forgetting her sling again, put a fierce young hand on his sleeve. “You called her his fancy.” “A man may fancy in a woman more or less than she desires. It may be her wit, when she’d give the world it were her face.” “Is she witty, then?” “No doubt he thinks so.” “And ugly?” “Betwixt and between.” “You have seen her?” “More or less.” “I only asked of her face.” “It was a bad light. She lies at an inn in the town called ‘The Mischief.’” “She lies well. Well, thank you, cousin.” Her features relaxed in a wonderful way. One might have thought her suddenly convinced and at ease. With a sigh that seemed to dissipate all her scruples, she chassé’d a retreating step or two, and twirled, and dropped a little mocking curtsey to the gentleman. “I must go now,” she said. “You have been very entertaining, Signor George, and--and there is no cure for blindness like----” “Like what?” “Like seeing, you know.” His brows went up, perplexed. “Have I been so whimsical?” “Infinitely, I assure you--the drollest, most diverting cousin--tra-la-la!” “But sympathetic, I hope, Kate?” “O, believe me, that isn’t the word for it--tra-la-la!” “You know you can always depend upon me for help and advice?” “O, _most_ disinterestedly!” His jaw seemed to stick as he opened it to answer. She laughed, as she turned her back on him. “Ah!” he breathed out. “I see you’ll make it up with Philip yet.” With a stamp of her foot, she flared round on him in a final spasm of anger. “You dare to say so! I tell you, once and for all, that from this moment it is eternal silence between us.”