She gave a little laugh which set his every nerve a-tingle, so certainly did its ring lack the appealing quality that had brought him so close to her. It seemed to thrust him back abruptly and brutally. "Tell me, Paul, haven't you ever had any love affairs?" she went on to ask, and there was a suspicion of banter in her tone. "I've told you all about my tragedy, now tell me about yours or all yours. I know we've told each other all our lives before, but of course we both bowdlerized. The most interesting parts have yet to be told." As she had asked him a direct question he felt constrained to answer it. He found himself considering whether his relation to Celia need count as a love affair, but he was so convinced he had never been in love with her at all that he decided he could leave her out without doing violence to his conscience. Altogether there had been in his life two very minor and foolish amourettes that might have became entanglements; one with a barmaid when he was in the lawyer's office, some of the clerks having persuaded him the girl "was gone on him," the other with a simple maiden of sixteen, the daughter of a market gardener, which idyll had proceeded at his father's country seat. Paul told the latter--it was a boyish passion that had come to nothing and stood for nothing in his life; the former he was ashamed of. "I proposed to her and gave her a mortal fright. She was so scared she ran away. We were both shamefaced when we met again, and my spurt of pluck was at an end. I dared not say another word to her, and somehow we drifted out of being sweethearts. I was barely nineteen at the time." Miss Brooke laughed again heartily, but Paul only felt the gloomier. "Tell me some more, please. You put me into quite a cheerful humour. What was your next love affair?" She had resumed her old militant badinage. "There is nothing more in my biography that is likely to entertain you," he answered evasively. "Is it so bad as that, Paul? I think you might tell me all the same. I'm not easily shocked." "You mistake me. I have told you all," he replied, driven to the lie direct. "Come, come, Mr. Paul. In a woman one might expect such a want of candour. But suppose I tell you _my_ other affairs--will that encourage you to tell me yours? Is it a bargain?" "Your other affairs?" he repeated. "Did you imagine I've had only one in my life? That's paying me a very poor compliment. This is our destination." "Why do you tease me, Lisa?" he asked, as they descended. He was relieved that the drive had come to an end. It had been a trying time for him. He wondered what it was all coming to? Just when the critical moment had come she had practically inhibited him from speaking. She was a strange, baffling girl, and he was helpless in her hands.