"I was invited to Mrs. Inge's, yet you find me here, because I preferred a quiet evening at home to a noisy one elsewhere. How do you explain the contradiction if you disbelieve my words?" "I am not so inexperienced as to tax my ingenuity with any such burden. With the Penelope web of female motives may fates and furies forbid rash meddling. Unless human nature here in America has undergone a radical change, nay, a most complete transmogrification, since I abjured it some years ago; unless this year is to be chronicled as an Avatar of truth and unselfishness, I will stake all my possessions on the assertion that some very peculiar and cogent reason, something beyond the desire to prosecute archaeological researches, has driven you to decline the invitation." She made no reply, but opened the book-case and replaced the volume which she had been reading; and he saw that she glanced uneasily toward the door, as if longing to escape. "Are you insulted at my presumption in thus catechising you?" "I am sorry, sir, to find that you have lost none of your cynicism in your travels." "Do you regard travelling as a panacea for minds diseased?" She looked up and smiled in his face--a smile so bright and arch and merry, that even a stone might have caught the glow. "Certainly not, Mr. Murray, as you are the most incorrigible traveller I have ever known." But there was no answering gleam on his darkening countenance as he watched her, and the brief silence that ensued was annoying to his companion, who felt less at ease every moment, and convinced that with such antagonism of character existing between them, all her peaceful, happy days at Le Bocage were drawing to a close. "Mr. Murray, I am cold, and I should like to go to the fire if you have no more questions to ask, and will be so kind as to unlock the door." He glanced round the room, and taking his grey travelling shawl from a chair where he had thrown it, laid it in a heap on the marble tiles, and said: "Yes, this floor is icy. Stand on the shawl, though I am well aware you are more tired of me than of the room." Another long pause followed, and then St. Elmo Murray came close to his companion, saying: