"Miss Grey, you don't mean it, I know--I can't believe it. Why, I have known you and seen you grow up since you were a child. Mrs. Saulsbury couldn't but know----" "Mrs. Saulsbury knows nothing of me: we know nothing of each other. I _have_ a lover, Mr. Sheppard, for all that. Do you want to know his name?" "I should like to know his name, certainly," the breathless Sheppard stammered out. "His name is Alceste----" "A Frenchman!" Sheppard was aghast. "A Frenchman truly--a French gentleman--a man of truth and courage and spirit and honor and everything good. A man who wouldn't tell a lie or do a mean thing, or flatter a silly woman, or persecute a very unhappy girl--no, not to save his soul, Mr. Sheppard. Do you happen to know any such man?" "No such man lives in Keeton." He was surprised into simple earnestness. "At least I don't know of any such man." "No; you and he are not likely to come together and be very familiar. Well, Mr. Sheppard, that is the man to whom I am engaged, and I mean to keep my engagement. You can tell Mrs. Saulsbury if you like." "But you haven't told me his other name." "Oh--I don't know his other name." "Miss Grey! Don't know his other name?" "No: and I don't think he has any other name. He has but the one name for me, and I don't want any second." "Where does he live, then--may I ask?" "Oh, yes--I may as well tell you all now, since I have told you so much. He only lives in a book, Mr. Sheppard; in what you would call a play," she added with contemptuous expression. "Oh, come now--I thought you were only amusing yourself." A smile of reviving satisfaction stole over his face. "I'm not much afraid of a rival like that, Miss Grey--if he is my only rival." "I don't know why you talk of a rival," the young woman answered, with a scornful glance at him; "but I can assure you he would be the most dangerous rival a living man could have. When I find a man like him, Mr. Sheppard, I hope he will ask me to marry him; indeed, when I find such a man I'll ask him to marry me--and if he be the man I take him for, he'll refuse me. I have told you all the truth now, Mr. Sheppard, and I hope you will think I need not say any more." "Still, I'm not quite without hope that something may be done," Mr. Sheppard said. "How if I were to study your hero's ways and try to be like him, Miss Grey?" A great brown heavy velvety bee at the moment came booming along, his ponderous flight almost level with the ground and not far above it. He sailed in and out among the trees and branches, now burying himself for a few seconds in some hollow part of a trunk, and then plodding through air again. "Do you think it would be of any use, Mr. Sheppard," she calmly asked, "if that honest bee were to study the ways of the eagle?" "You are not complimentary, Miss Grey," he said, reddening. "No: I don't believe in compliments: I very much prefer truth."