How did he know anything of the kind? How dared he laugh in that meaning way? How dared he look at Janet as if he had found her out; as if she, too, had a scheme like himself? Janet gave him a look in return which might have turned a more sensitive man to stone, and she said, with great dignity, wrapping herself up in the humility of her governess-state as in a mantle: “I am here to play for anyone who wishes for my services, Mr. Meredith, as I think you ought to know.” “Good heavens,” cried Mrs. Harwood, “my dear child! I hope you don’t take it in that serious way. If it is so disagreeable to you, my dear, you shall never be asked to humor poor Dolff again.” “Oh, Mrs. Harwood, that is not what I meant! I am very glad to do it for anyone, but I don’t like to hear people talk--to hear people laugh----” “The little thing is in a temper,” said Meredith, aside to Gussy, “have I said anything so very dreadful? Come and try whether they have thumped the piano all to pieces, and then we can talk.” “I don’t know that you have said anything dreadful. And we can talk very well here,” said Gussy, in the same undertone. “She is like a little turkey-cock,” said Meredith. “What has been going on? To think that something should always turn up, a farce or a tragedy, when one is out of the way for a few days.” Gussy asked herself, with a catching of the breath, if it were a farce or a tragedy? How true that was! No, it would not be a tragedy now--now that he had come back. “Nothing has been going on--except some silly songs,” she said. It did not occur to her that her own songs were silly, or that there might be two meanings to the word, but Meredith was more ready in his comprehension. “Ah, some silly songs!” he said. Upon which Gussy, feeling more and more the soft welling-up from under the crackling frost, of the warmer waters, felt a compunction. “Poor Dolff,” she said, “is not altogether exalted in his tastes, you know. And he has taken a music-hall craze. I suppose it is from the music-hall they come, all those wonderful performances. But he likes them, it appears, as well--as well----” “As we like ours,” said Meredith. “Well, ours----” she colored a little as she said the word; but why should she not say it, seeing he had thus given her the cue? “Ours are better worth liking. At the same time,” said Gussy, returning to her old self, “we are all so silly in this family that we can’t do anything without doing a great deal too much of it. We can’t, I fear, take anything moderately. We do it with all our heart.” “That is why you do it so well,” said Meredith.