"Oh, what's the difference? We are going to be friends, aren't we--Avis?" "Why--why, I am sure I don't know." "Gracious gravy, what an admirable colour you have, Avis! Well,--I know. And I can inform you, quite confidentially, Avis, that we are not going to be--. friends. We are going to be--" "We are going to be late for luncheon," said she, in haste. "Good-morning, Mr. Townsend." 6 Yet, the very next day, paradoxically enough, she told me: "I shall always think of you as a very, very dear friend. But it is quite impossible we should ever be anything else." "And why, Avis?" "Because--" "That"--after an interval--"strikes me as rather a poor reason. So, suppose we say this June?" Another interval. "Well, Avis?" "Dear me, aren't those roses pretty? I wish you would get me one, Mr. Townsend." "Avis, we are not discussing roses." "Well, they _are_ pretty." "Avis!"--reproachfully. Still another interval. "I--I hardly know." "Avis!"--with disappointment. "I--I believe--" "Avis!"--very tenderly. "I--I almost think so,--and the horrid man looks as if he thought so, too!" There was a fourth interval, during which the girl made a complete and careful survey of her shoes. Then, all in a breath, "It could not possibly be June, of course, and you must give me until to-morrow to think about November," and a sudden flutter of skirts. I returned to Gridlington treading on air. 7 For I was, by this time, as thoroughly in love as Amadis of Gaul or Aucassin of Beaucaire or any other hero of romance you may elect to mention. Some two weeks earlier I would have scoffed at the notion of such a thing coming to pass; and I could have demonstrated, logically enough, that it was impossible for Robert Etheridge Townsend, with his keen knowledge of the world and of the innumerable vanities and whims of womankind, ever again to go the way of all flesh. But the problem, like the puzzle of the Eleatic philosophers, had solved itself. "Achilles cannot catch the tortoise," but he does. It was impossible for me to fall uncomfortably deep in love--but I had done so. And it pricked my conscience, too, that Margaret should not know I was aware of her identity. But she had chosen to play the comedy to the end, and in common with the greater part of trousered humanity, I had, after all, no insuperable objection to a rich wife; though, to do me justice, I rarely thought of her, now, as Margaret Hugonin the heiress, but considered her, in a more comprehensive fashion, as the one woman in the universe whose perfections triumphantly overpeered the skyiest heights of preciosity. 26. _He Assists in the Diversion of Birds_ We met, then, in the clear May morning, with what occult trepidations I cannot say. You may depend upon it, though, we had our emotions.