“Well, you must allow it was a pretty speech.” “Perhaps,” said Lydia, with sudden gravity, in which there seemed to Staniford a tender insinuation of reproach, “he was laughing at her.” “If he was, he was properly punished. He went on to Rome, and when he came back to Venice the beautiful nun was dead. He thought that his words 'seemed fatal.' Do you suppose it would kill you _now_ to be jested with?” “I don't think people like it generally.” “Why, Miss Blood, you are intense!” “I don't know what you mean by that,” said Lydia. “You like to take things seriously. You can't bear to think that people are not the least in earnest, even when they least seem so.” “Yes,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “perhaps that's true. Should you like to be made fun of, yourself?” “I shouldn't mind it, I fancy, though it would depend a great deal upon who made fun of me. I suppose that women always laugh at men,--at their clumsiness, their want of tact, the fit of their clothes.” “I don't know. I should not do that with any one I--” “You liked? Oh, none of them do!” cried Staniford. “I was not going to say that,” faltered the girl. “What were you going to say?” She waited a moment. “Yes, I was going to say that,” she assented with a sigh of helpless veracity. “What makes you laugh?” she asked, in distress. “Something I like. I'm different from you: I laugh at what I like; I like your truthfulness,--it's charming.” “I didn't know that truth need be charming.” “It had better be, in women, if it's to keep even with the other thing.” Lydia seemed shocked; she made a faint, involuntary motion to withdraw her hand, but he closed his arm upon it. “Don't condemn me for thinking that fibbing is charming. I shouldn't like it at all in you. Should you in me?” “I shouldn't in any one,” said Lydia. “Then what is it you dislike in me?” he suddenly demanded. “I didn't say that I disliked anything in you.” “But you have made fun of something in me?” “No, no!” “Then it wasn't the stirring of a guilty conscience when you asked me whether I should like to be made fun of? I took it for granted you'd been doing it.” “You are very suspicious.” “Yes; and what else?” “Oh, you like to know just what every one thinks and feels.” “Go on!” cried Staniford. “Analyze me, formulate me!” “That's all.” “All I come to?” “All I have to say.” “That's very little. Now, I'll begin on you. You don't care what people think or feel.” “Oh, yes, I do. I care too much.” “Do you care what I think?” “Yes.” “Then I think you're too unsuspicious.” “Ought I to suspect somebody?” she asked, lightly. “Oh, that's the way with all your sex. One asks you to be suspicious, and you ask whom you shall suspect. You can do nothing in the abstract. I should like to be suspicious for you. Will you let me?” “Oh, yes, if you like to be.” “Thanks. I shall be terribly vigilant,--a perfect dragon. And you really invest me with authority?” “Yes.”