She answered softly 'Yes,'—yet was very near adding, 'But you are spilling _mine!'_—It was rather hard. Would he be always doing such things, over the head of her pleasure? But in the new life and purpose awake in her, Wych Hazel had found a new set of answers to trouble some questions. If the answers were also sometimes difficult, they were at least conclusive. And now, as she stood there, these words came: "For even Christ pleased not himself." "Even,"—what was she, to set up _her_ pleasure against anybody's good? A quiver crept round her lips for a minute—but then she looked up and laughed. 'I am just as perverse as I can be, to-night,' she said. 'Stroked all the wrong way. That disposes of everything.' Rollo bent and pressed his lips to those soft trembling ones, and still holding her fast, caressed face and hair with the free hand; his face shewing more delight in her than Hazel was in a condition to observe; though the tenderness of tone and touch spoke their own language. 'Hazel—' he said softly. She looked up, listening. 'I am curious about something.' 'I cannot say I shall be happy to gratify your curiosity, until I know what it is about.' 'It concerns the question, how you are going to ask my pardon for the thought that has been in your head?' 'I am not going to do it.' 'You ought. And you know that what you ought, you always, sooner or later,—do.' 'Ought I?' said Wych Hazel. 'Is it one of your prerogatives to have your pardon asked without cause?' But then she laid her face against his, in a way that was extremely womanish and not a bit self-asserting. Rollo stood still and added no more. He had read what was going on in her thoughts, and he knew that she was mistaken; but he also knew that words prove nothing, and as before, he waited. Only as at last he let her out of his arms, he said lightly, 'You will not lose anything in the long run, Hazel. People never do, by doing right.' CHAPTER XXXI. NOVICE WORK. Mrs. Coles did not improve her position next day. 'What nights does Sacchi-süssi sing?' she asked, when Rollo had left the three ladies alone. Hazel answered that she had not noticed. 'They say she is wonderful, and beautiful, and everything. Do you suppose Dane will take us, if we ask him nicely?' 'I do not go.' 'To the opera? My dear! Not at all?' 'Not at all.' 'But why?' Wych Hazel stood thinking. She was very shy of declaring herself—yet sometimes it must be done.