"I don't know about the bird," he says, "but this I _do_ know, that in my eyes you are worth two of anything in all this wide world." His tone is so full of feeling, so replete with real, unaffected earnestness and affection that she is honestly touched. She even suffers his arm to embrace her (for the time being), and turns her eyes upon him kindly enough. "How fond you are of me," she says, regretfully. "Too fond. I am not worth it." Then, in a curious tone, "How strange it is that you should love me so dearly when Roger actually _disliked_ me!" "You are always thinking of your cousin," exclaims he, with a quick frown. "He seems never very far from your thoughts." "How can I help that," says Dulce, with an attempt at lightness; "it is so difficult to rid the mind of a distasteful subject." "And," eagerly--"it is a distasteful subject? You are really glad your engagement with him is at an end?" "Of course I am glad," says Miss Blount, impatiently; "why should I be otherwise? How often have you told me yourself that he and I were unsuited to each other--and how many times have you reminded me of his unbearable temper! I hope," with passionate energy, "I shall never see him again!" "Let us forget him," says Gower, gently; "there are plenty of other things to discuss besides him. For one thing, let me tell you this--that though we have been engaged for a long time now, you have never once kissed me." "Yes--and don't you know why?" asks Miss Blount, sweetly, and with all the air of one who is about to impart the most agreeable intelligence--"Can't you guess? It is because I think kissing a _mistake_. Not only a mistake, but a positive _betise_. It commonizes everything, and--and--is really death to sentiment in my opinion." "Death to it?--an aid to it, I should say," says Mr. Gower, bluntly. "Should you? I am sure experience will prove you wrong," says Dulce, suavely, "and, at all events, I hate being kissed." "Do you? Yet twice I saw you let your cousin kiss you," says Stephen, gloomily. "And see what came of it," retorts she, quickly. "He got--that is--we _both_ got tired of each other. And then we quarrelled--we were always quarrelling, it seems to me now--and then he--that is, we _both_ grew to hate each other, and that of course ended everything. I really think," says Miss Blount, with suppressed passion, "I am the one girl in the world he cordially dislikes and despises. He almost told me so before--before we parted." "Just like him, unmannerly beast!" says Mr. Gower, with deep disgust. "It was just as well we found it all out in time," says Dulce, with a short, but heavily-drawn sigh--probably, let us hope so, at least--one of intense relief, "because he was really tiresome in most ways." "I rather think so; I'm sure I wonder how you put up with him for so long," says Gower, contemptuously.