"You'd like to go back altogether," said the girl, affirming it as a fact; and yet her sweet eyes, gravely unsatisfied, seemed to peer through his into his soul. "I don't say that, Miss Sellwood," he protested. "Of course it's a great thing for me to have come in for all this fortune and power--and it'll be a greater thing still once I can believe it's true! That's the trouble. The whole show's so like a dream. And that's where this little hut helps me; _it's_ real, anyway; I can sight _it_. As for all the rest, it's too many measles for me--as yet; what's more, if I was to wake up this minute on Carara I shouldn't so very much mind." "I wonder," said Olivia, with her fine eyes looking through him still. "I just wonder!" And her tone set him wondering too. "Of course," he faltered, "I should be mighty sorry to wake up and find I'd only dreamt _you_!" "Of course," she returned, with a laughing bow; but there had been an instant's pause; and she was studying the picture-gallery over the bunk when she continued, "I see you've been long enough in England to acquire the art of making pretty speeches. And I must tell you at once that they never amuse me. At least," she added more kindly, again facing him, "not when they come from a person as a rule so candid as yourself." "But you mistake me; I was perfectly candid," protested poor Jack. "It won't do," said the girl. "And it's time we went." Olivia felt that she had made excellent friends with the Duke; that the more she saw of him, the better she would probably like him; and that she could possibly be of use to him, in little ways, if he would be sensible, and make no more than a friend of her. She was not so sure of him, however, as she could have wished; and she was anxious to leave well alone. It was thus the worst of luck that at this last moment she should perceive the suggestively white bouquet upon the high deal chimney-piece. "You've been to a wedding," she cried, "and I've never heard a word about it! Whose was the wedding? Some of the tenantry, of course, or the bride would hardly have presented you with her bouquet!" And she reached it down, and widened her pretty nostrils over the fading flowers; but they smelt of death; and their waxen whiteness had here and there the tarnish of a half-eaten apple. "There was no bride," said Jack, "and no wedding." "Then why this bride's bouquet? No! I beg your pardon; it isn't a fair question." "It is--perfectly. I had it made for a young lady. The head-gardener made it, but I told him first what I wanted. There was no word of a wedding; I only thought a nosegay would be the right sort of thing to give a young lady, to show her she was mighty welcome; and I thought white was a nice clean sort of colour. But it turned out I was wrong; she wouldn't have liked it; it would only have made her uncomfortable; so, when I found out that, I just let it rest."