"Don't be earnest, Philip," interrupts she, with a frown, and a sudden change of tone, raising her head, and regarding him with distasteful hauteur; "there is nothing I detest so much; and _your_ earnestness especially wearies me. When I spoke I was merely jesting, as you must have known. I do not want your love. I have told you so before. Let my hands go, Philip; your touch is _hateful_ to me." He drops her hands as though they burned him; and she, with flushed cheeks and a still frowning brow, turns abruptly away, leaving him alone,--angered, hurt, but still adoring. Ten minutes later, her heart--a tender one--misgives her. She has been unjust to him,--unkind. She will return and make such reparation as lies in her power. With a light step she returns to the tea-room, where she left him, and, looking gently in, finds he has neither stirred nor raised his head since her cruel words cut him to the heart. Ten minutes,--a long time,--and all consumed in thoughts of her! Feeling still more contrite, she approaches him. "Why, Philip," she says, with an attempt at playfulness, "still enduring 'grinding torments?' What have I said to you? You have taken my foolish words too much to heart. That is not wise. Sometimes I hardly know myself what it is I have been saying." She has come very near to him,--so near that gazing up at him appealingly, she brings her face in dangerously close proximity to his. A mad desire to kiss the lips that sue so sweetly for a pardon fills him, yet he dares not do it. Although a man not given to self-restraint where desire is at elbow urging him on, he now stands subdued, unnerved, in Molly's presence. "Have I really distressed you?" asks she, softly, his strange silence rendering her still more remorseful. "Come,"--laying her hand upon his arm,--"tell me what I have done." "'Sweet, you have trod on a heart,'" quotes Philip, in so low a tone as to be almost unheard. He crosses his hand tightly over hers for an instant; a moment later, and it is she who--this time--finds herself alone. In the next room success is crowning their efforts. When Molly re-enters, she finds the work almost completed. Just a finishing touch here and there, and all is ended. "I suppose I should consider myself in luck: I have still a little skin left," says Sir Penthony, examining his hand with tender solicitude. "I don't think I fancy decorating: I shan't take to the trade." "You--should have put on gloves, you know, and that," says Grainger, who is regarding his dainty fingers with undisguised sadness,--something that is _almost_ an expression on his face. "But isn't it awfully pretty?" says Lady Stafford, gazing round her with an air of pride. "Awfully nice," replies Molly. "Quite too awfully awful," exclaims Mr. Potts, with exaggerated enthusiasm, and is instantly suppressed.