Clarice tried to catch his eye, so as to see if he was speaking the truth, but Ferdinand evaded her gaze, and rising, went to the fireplace, where he lighted a cigarette. The girl remained seated where she was, resting her elbows on the table, and with a frown knitting her brow. Ferdy was so weak, that she always feared lest his weakness should land him in trouble. Moreover, he was not truthful, when anything was to be gained by telling a falsehood. His confused manner showed that he had something to hide; but, she reflected bitterly, that to ply him with questions, would only make his recording angel take to shorthand, so rapidly would the lies pour out. Ferdy, leaning his elbows on the mantelpiece, admired his own handsome face in the round mirror, and furtively glanced at the reflection of his sister. The twins were wonderfully alike, and wonderfully good-looking, but Clarice, strange to say, was the more manly of the two. That is her manner was more masculine and decisive, her mouth was firmer, and she had the squarer chin. With his rosy oval face, his Grecian nose, his full lips, and soft brown hair, which lay in silky waves on his white forehead, Ferdinand was much too pretty for a man. He possessed a slim, shapely figure, and wore the smartest of clothes with an aristocratic air. Curiously enough, considering his delicate looks, he was an excellent athlete, and also had proved his bravery more than once, when in the Wild Waste Lands at the Back of Beyond, whither he had gone a year previously on a tramp steamer. From that wild excursion he had returned brown and healthy, and full of life; but within twenty-four hours, Clarice, who had rejoiced at the apparently virile change, knew that Ferdy was as weak and wavering as ever. He was a weed to voyage with every current, a feather to be wafted hither and thither, on every breath of wind. "I should have been the man," said Clarice, suddenly rising, and placing her hands on her hips with a throw-back of her shoulders. "Eh--er--what's that you say?" asked Ferdy, absently. His sister came to where he stood, and placed her face beside his. "I should have been the man, and you the woman," she declared, as they looked at their delicate, youthful faces in the mirror. "You and I are alike, Ferdy, but there is a difference." "If we are alike, how can there be a difference?" asked the wise youth, pettishly. "Can't you see? I can. Look at my chin, and at your own. Gaze into my eyes, see the firmness of my lips. There's a dash of the man in me, Ferdy, and much of the woman about you." Baird dropped into an armchair and kicked his long legs in the air with a light laugh. "I suppose you say that, because I'm like you." "You aren't like me. I wish you were." "Come, now--your face and mine. Where's the difference?"