It is the afternoon of the next day, and as the sun has come out in great force, and the mildness of the day almost resembles Spring in its earliest stages; they are all about the place, strolling hither and thither, whithersoever pleasant fancy guides them. Roger and Dulce, after lingering for some time in the Winter garden looking at the snowdrops, and such poor foster-babes as have thrust their pallid faces above the warm earth, that, like a cruel stepmother, has driven them too early from her breast, have moved slowly onwards until they find themselves beside a fountain that used to be a favorite haunt of theirs long ago. Dulce, seating herself upon the stone-work that surrounds it, though the water is too chilly to be pleasant, still toys lightly with it with her idle fingers, just tipping it coquettishly now and then, with her eyes bent thoughtfully upon as it sways calmly to and fro beneath the touch of the cold wind that passes over it. Just now she raises her eyes and fixes them inquiringly on Roger. "Go on," she says, quietly. "You were surely going to ask me something. Are you afraid of me?" "A little, I confess." "You need not." She is still looking at him very earnestly. "Well, then," says Roger, as though nerving himself for a struggle--"tell me this." He leaves where he is standing and comes closer to her. "Did--did you ever kiss Gower?" "Never--_never_!" answers Dulce, growing quite pale. "I have no right to ask it, I know that," says Roger. "But," desperately, "did he ever kiss _you_?" "Never, indeed." "Honor bright?" "Honor bright." A long silence. Miss Blount's fingers are quite deep in the water now, and I think she does not even feel the cold of it. "He has been engaged to you for three months and more and never wanted to kiss you!" exclaims Roger at last, in a tone expressive of great amazement and greater contempt. "I don't think I said quite _that_," returns she, coloring faintly. "Then"--eagerly--"it was _you_ prevented him!" "I don't care much about that sort of thing," says Dulce, with a little shrug. "Don't you? Then I don't believe you care a button about _him_," replies he, with glad conviction. "That is mere surmise on your part. Different people"--vaguely--"are different. I don't believe if I had any affection for a person that a mere formal act like kissing would increase the feeling." "Oh, wouldn't it, though!" says Mr. Dare--"that's all you know about it! You just try it, that's all." "Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind," says Dulce, with much indignation, and some natural disappointment--that _he_ should recommend such a course to her!