This time Alice did not rotate on the pivot, but, standing firm, became the centre of revolution herself, and brought Charley to a “front face” again, by a sturdy pull upon his arm, and began to move slowly forward, as though to return to the Argo. “What is it?” asked she, looking up into his face with eager interest. “_Do_ tell me?” “Tell you what?” “Why you act so strangely? Which of the two, then?” These words threw Charley into his brown study again. Looking far away, with drawn lids, he was silent for some time. “Alice,” said he, turning slowly and looking into her eyes, “I am going to surprise you.” “_Neither_ Mary nor Lucy, you are going to say!” And her snowy bosom beat with thick-thronging breaths. “O-o-oh, I know,” cried she, with a look of pain. “_He is married already!_” Yet why with a look of pain? Ought she not rather on her friend’s account to have rejoiced? But here was a hero evaporated; and in this humdrum treadmill of our life there is _so_ little of romance! And do we not all of us, men and children alike, strain our eyes against the darkened sky, regretful that the flashing but all too evanescent meteor has passed away into the abyss of night? Charley smiled. “How fearfully and wonderfully is woman made! You first ask me for information which I do not possess, but which it appears you do, then answer your own question; then when I am about to say something, you tell me what I am about to say; and then—with a little shriek—discover the mare’s nest I am about to reveal! No, I was not going to say ‘neither Lucy nor Mary,’ nor yet that the Don was married. I was about to make a proposition to you. Are you really _very_ anxious to have it decided whether it is Mary or Lucy?” “Very.” “Then I know but one way: ask the Don himself.” “The idea!” cried Alice, with a cheery laugh. “What!” added she, looking up into his face with great surprise, “surely you are not in earnest!” “I am.” “Mr. Frobisher!” “I am. I said I was going to surprise you.” Alice wheeled in front of him, and they stood looking into each other’s eyes. “Upon—my—word,” said she, slowly, “I believe you really mean it!” “I do.” “Mr. Frobisher! Then, if it be so important to you to know, why don’t you ask him yourself?” “It is of no earthly importance to me to know; it is of importance to—to—to—him to be asked?” “You awful sphinx! You will kill me with curiosity! But why not ask him yourself? Why put it on me?” “Because,” said Charley, smiling,—“simply because it is your question; you want the answer to the riddle, not I!” “That’s just the way with you men,” said Alice, smiling; “you affect to be lofty beings, superior to the foible, curiosity. And so you would make a cat’s paw of me?” “Well, yes; for it is you who want the chestnuts.” “And my fingers, therefore, are to be burnt; for this same Mr. Don is an awful somebody to approach.”