"I am very sorry to hear it," I said, gently. "I don't want you to. Oh, please _don't_!" as he took my hand. "I--I--if you only knew how I _hate_ being touched!" He leaned back and looked at me. There is something which goes to the head a little about being in a brougham with nice fur rugs alone with some one at night. The lights flashing in at the windows, and that faint scent of a very good cigar. I felt fearfully excited. If it had been Lord Robert, I believe--well---- He leaned over very close to me. It seemed in another moment he would kiss me, and what could I do then? I couldn't scream, or jump out in Leicester Square, could I? "Why do you call me Evangeline?" I said, by way of putting him off. "I never said you might." "Foolish child!--I shall call you what I please. You drive me mad. I don't know what you were born for. Do you always have this effect on people?" "What effect?" I said, to gain time; we had got nearly into Long Acre. "An effect that causes one to lose all discretion. I feel I would give my soul to hold you in my arms." I told him I did not think it was at all nice or respectful of him to talk so--that I found such love revolting. "You tell me in your sane moments I am most unsuitable to you--you try to keep away from me--and then when you get close you begin to talk this stuff! I think it is an insult!" I said, angry and disdainful. "When I arouse devotion and tenderness in some one, then I shall listen, but to you and to this--never!" "Go on," he said. "Even in the dim light you look beautiful when cross." "I am not cross," I answered. "Only absolutely disgusted." By that time, thank goodness, we had got into the stream of carriages close to the opera-house. Mr. Carruthers, however, seemed hardly to notice this. "Darling," he said, "I will try not to annoy you; but you are so fearfully provoking. I--tell you truly, no man would find it easy to keep cool with you." "Oh, I don't know what it is, being cool, or not cool," I said, wearily. "I am tired of every one. Even as tiny a thing as Malcolm Montgomerie gets odd like this!" He leaned back and laughed, and then said, angrily: "Impertinence! I will wring his neck!" "Thank Heaven we have arrived!" I exclaimed, as we drove under the portico. I gave a great sigh of relief. Really, men are very trying and tiresome, and if I shall always have to put up with these scenes through having red hair, I almost wish it were mouse-colored, like Cicely Parker's. Mrs. Carruthers often said, "You need not suppose, Evangeline, that you are going to have a quiet life with your coloring; the only thing one can hope for is that you will screw on your head."