‘You really do talk the most shocking rubbish,’ said Gundred sensibly, but without disapproving sternness. ‘Lady Adela, why do you let Kingston talk such rubbish?’ ‘My mother,’ replied Kingston, intercepting the mild remonstrance of Lady Adela’s reply, ‘brought me up to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You asked me about the state of my feelings, and I gave you a truthful reply. Behold! Your coming has taught me, for the ninety-ninth time, that life is worth living. Sit down and I will ring for tea. My dear, surely it is tea-time? Gundred has clearly come here simply and solely to get a cup of tea. With me she will have nothing to say. It is tea she wants. She pants for it, like the hart for cooling brooks.’ ‘Hush!’ said Gundred; ‘don’t talk like that. It’s irreverent. But, indeed, Lady Adela, I certainly should be delighted if you would let me stay and have some tea with you. I lunched with Aunt Agnes, and she gave me a lunch of unimaginable nastiness, so that now I feel as if I had not eaten for days.’ ‘You poor darling!’ cried Lady Adela with pitying indignation; ‘that is always the way. Wait, and I will order you something really nice. Look after Gundred, Kingston dear, while I go and interview Tessington about to-night. I have been wanting to see her all the afternoon, and I can just as well have her up to the dining-room.’ Having thus tactfully explained her departure, Lady Adela left the lovers alone. A silence fell. ‘What are you thinking of?’ asked Gundred at last. ‘I am wondering,’ replied Kingston, ‘what, precisely, is going on behind those inscrutable eyes of yours--what thoughts are playing about behind that cool white forehead of yours. And the worst of it is that I can never find out. You will never let me in of your own accord; and if I took an axe and forced my way in I should only find a mess of blood and bone.’ ‘Don’t be horrid,’ said Gundred, shuddering. ‘I am sure I tell you everything I think. I hide nothing from you.’ ‘Perhaps not, you well-mannered Sphinx. But you reveal nothing. Nothing about you gives any index to your thoughts. You are too fearfully and wonderfully trained. I have seen you suffering agonies of boredom with a smile; I have seen you suffering torments of cold and discomfort with the sweetest blandness. No one can ever guess what a person like that is really thinking. For all I know, you may, at this very moment, be remarking a smut on my nose or a blemish on my character. Your behaviour gives no clue.’ ‘But, Kingston dear,’ protested Gundred, moved by this denunciation, ‘you would not have a rude and boorish wife, I am sure. And you know I have no fault to find with you. I think I have shown that--yes?’