There was no question of cat or mouse between the other two, who stood by each other’s side without movement, without looking at each other, while the question of the ball was discussed. Rosamond at last said to her partner, speaking as usual from her full height, and without even turning her head his way: “You do not dance so very badly, if you would take time and not be flurried.” It was the same advice which Evelyn had given him about his shooting, and which he had resented then, as he resented this counsel now. “You are very kind to encourage me. I have no desire to learn,” he said. “Oh, that’s silly,” said Rosamond “Why shouldn’t you learn? Why shouldn’t you make yourself a little agreeable, Mr. Rowland? No, of course it is nothing to me. I see you for a few weeks, a great deal of you, and then perhaps I never see you again. It does not matter to me in the very least. Still it is a pity to see a man sitting as you do--not speaking, not taking an interest in anything. What is the good of being a man at all?” Archie was very much taken aback by this onslaught. He stared at her for a moment helplessly. His wit was not quick enough to make any lively rejoinder as he might have done. All he could say was rather vulgar, and said with an injured, offended air--“I did not make myself.” “You ought to make yourself,” said the severe young judge, “if you are not made properly to begin with; but that is not the question. Don’t you know it makes everybody uncomfortable to see the son of the house sitting behind never saying anything. I hate to be made uncomfortable,” said Rosamond, “it makes me think all sorts of horrid things. But there is nothing the matter with you. You are not deformed or bad in your head, or out of health, or badly snubbed. Mrs. Rowland keeps looking at you: she does not know what to do; and you make _me_ horribly uncomfortable,” said Rosamond with energy; “that was why I made you get up and dance.” “It wasn’t very successful,” said Archie, with a grim smile; “don’t you wish you had let it alone?” “No, I don’t wish I had let it alone. I should like to take you by the shoulders and shake you. Oh, if I were your sister!” She broke off with a suggestive grind of her white teeth. “Eddy is bad enough,” she added after a moment. “He’s a little ape: I can do nothing with him; but I could put up with even Eddy better than I could put up with you--if I were your sister.” “But fortunately you are not my sister.” “No, nor your stepmother either,” said Rosamond with energy, “or I don’t know what I should do. Can’t you talk a little, can’t you try to dance a bit, can’t you be like other people? Usually I don’t advise other people so very much: they chatter for ever and ever, and talk a great deal of nonsense. But it reconciles one to them. When one sees you--” “Perhaps I had better take myself off,” said Archie; “and then you will not have that annoyance any more.”