It suits some men to be in love, and Gerald looked very well as he threw out his defiance _urbi et orbi_. Neaera was charmed and touched. "Gerald dear, you are too good--you are, indeed,--too good to me and too good for me." Gerald said, in language too eloquent to be reproduced, that nobody could help being "good" to her, and nobody in the world was good enough for her. "And are you content to take me entirely on trust?" "Absolutely." "While I am under this shadow?" "You are under no shadow. I take your word implicitly, as I would take it against gods and men." "Ah, I don't deserve it." "Who could look in your eyes"--Gerald was doing so--"and think of deceit? Why do you look away, sweetheart?" "I daren't--I daren't!" "What?" "Be--be--trusted like that!" Gerald smiled. "Very well; then you shan't be. I will treat you as if--as if I _doubted_ you. Then will you be satisfied?" Neaera tried to smile at this pleasantry. She was kneeling by Gerald's chair as she often did, looking up at him. "Doubted me?" she said. "Yes, since you won't let your eyes speak for you, I will put you to the question. Will that be enough?" Poor Neaera! she thought it would be quite enough. "And I will ask you, what I have never condescended to ask yet, dearest, if there's a word of truth in it all?" Gerald, still playfully, took one of her hands and raised it aloft. "Now look at me and say--what shall be your oath?" Neaera was silent. This passed words; every time she spoke she made it worse. "I know," pursued Gerald, who was much pleased with his little comedy. "Say this, 'On my honour and love, I am not the girl.'" Why hadn't she let him alone with his nonsense about her eyes? That was not, to Neaera's thinking, as bad as a lie direct. "On her honour and love!" She could not help hesitating for just a moment. "I am not the girl, on my honour and love." Her words came almost with a sob, a stifled sob, that made Gerald full of remorse and penitence, and loud in imprecations on his own stupidity. "It was all a joke, sweetest," he pleaded; "but it was a stupid joke, and it has distressed you. Did you dream I doubted you?" "No." "Well, then, say you knew it was a joke." "Yes, dear, I know it was,--of course it was; but it--it rather frightened me." "Poor child! Never mind; you'll be amused when you think of it presently. And, my darling, it really, seriously, does make me happier. I never doubted, but it is pleasant to hear the truth from your own sweet lips. Now I am ready for all the world. And what about the day?" "The day?" "Of course you don't know what day! Shall it be directly?" "What does 'directly' mean?" asked Neaera, mustering a rather watery smile. "In a week." "Gerald!" But, after the usual negotiations, Neaera was brought to consent to that day three weeks, provided Lord Tottlebury's approval was obtained. "And, please, don't quarrel with your cousin any more!" "I can afford to let him alone now."