“You really mean that you wouldn’t mind being killed if somehow it would save either of their lives?” “Of course I do, just as you would gladly die to save your Eustace.” “But I wouldn’t!” cried Mabel involuntarily, then tried to minimise the effect of her admission by turning it into a joke. “I think it’s his privilege to do that for me.” “I wish you wouldn’t say that sort of thing!” said Flora reproachfully. “Happily there’s no one else to hear it, but if I didn’t know you, I should think you were perfectly horrid.” “No, Flora, really,” cried Mabel, in a burst of honesty; “I can’t say confidently that there is one person in the world I would die for. I feel as if I could die to save Georgia, but I don’t know whether I could do it when the time came. I used to think that people--English people, at any rate--became heroic just as a matter of course when danger happened, but now I begin to believe that it depends a good deal on what they have been like before.” “You always try to make the worst of yourself.” “No, I don’t. I’m trying to look at myself as I really am. I have never in all my life done a thing I didn’t like if I could help it. What sort of preparation is that for being heroic? Flora,” with a sudden change of subject, “suppose the enemy had stormed the fort before this evening, would you have asked your father or Fred to kill you?” “No,” was the unexpected reply. “It would have been so awfully hard on them. I keep a revolver in this pocket of my coat. You just put it to your eye--and it’s done.” “Oh, I wish I was like you! I know I should be wondering and worrying whether it was right, and all that sort of thing, until it was too late to do it.” “I don’t care whether it would be right or not,” said Flora doggedly. “I should do it. Do you think I would make things worse for papa and Fred, or let them have the blame of it if it was wrong?” “I suppose Eustace would do it for me,” drearily. “He would if he thought it was the proper thing. He always does the proper thing.” “I wish you wouldn’t talk in such a horrid voice. It makes me feel creepy. And I don’t think it’s fair to say that sort of thing about the Commissioner. He’s perfectly devoted to you, and you know it would break his heart to have to--do what we were talking about. I don’t believe you’re half as fond of him as he is of you.” “Have you found that out now for the first time?” “Then it’s a shame!” cried Flora. “Why do you let him think you care for him? He worships you, and you pretend----” “I don’t pretend. He took it into his head that I cared for him, and wouldn’t let me say I didn’t. And he doesn’t worship me. He thinks that I shall make a nice adoring sort of worshipper for him when he has got me well in hand.” “Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said Flora crushingly.