"He _seized_ it--my child, it has waggled like a blanc-mange ever since!--and kissed it. Then, quite suddenly, he broke out into a sort of rhapsody-like _'The Song of Solomon,'_ only nicer--with his head bowed over my hands. (He had got hold of the other one too, by this time.) I felt perfectly helpless, so I let him run on. I shan't tell you what he said, dear, because it wouldn't be cricket. Anyhow, a perfectly idiotic tear suddenly rolled down my nose--after all, I had had a _fearfully_ long day--and I tried to pull my hands away. Robin let them go at once. "'You are right. The time for such things is not yet,' he said, in a queer Biblical sort of way. 'It was a sudden weakness on my part. I had not meant it, you may be sure.' "The only thing I _am_ sure about," I said, feeling thoroughly vexed about the tear, "is that we have been in this room nearly an hour. Please unlock the door. "Then we went downstairs." After that follow one or two postscripts of a reflective nature, the general trend of which seems to indicate that Robin is rather a dear, but quite impossible. * * * * * "A flippant and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general. Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any. Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite so brutally unkind to Robin during this interview as she would have us believe. "The blundering creature! He went about it in _quite_ the wrong way," you say, madam? Very likely. But if a woman only took a man when he went about it in exactly the right way, how very few marriages there would be! BOOK TWO. THE FINISHED ARTICLE CHAPTER ELEVEN. A MISFIRE. I. There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week. Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does not intend to overwork himself to-day,--this is probably due to the fact that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and when I got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there; Thursday I regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking enthusiasm but comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a debilitated but hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in anticipating its speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow with a straw hat and a week-end bag.