“I don’t think falling in love with a sweet girl is a crime,” said Clementina gently. “There’s one in that automobile”—she nodded in the direction of a rosebud piece of womanhood in a carriage that was held up by a block in the traffic, just in front of them. “If any man fell in love with her right off; as she sat there, not knowing her, it wouldn’t be a crime. It would be a divine adventure.” “She’s not worth two penn’orth of paint,” said Tommy disparagingly—now Clementina has told me that this was a singularly beautiful girl—such are other women than his Dulcinea in the eyes of the true lover—“she isn’t even doll-pretty. But suppose she were, for the sake of argument—it might be a divine adventure for the fool who fell in love with her and never told her; but for the penniless cad who went up and told her—and got her love in return—it would be a crime.” Now it must be remembered that Tommy was entirely ignorant of the fact that a fortune of two thousand pounds, the spoils of Old Joe Jenks, was coyly lying at his banker’s, who had made the usual acknowledgment to the payer-in and not to the payee. “So you’ve told Etta?” said Clementina, feeling curiously remote from him and yet curiously drawn to him. “This morning,” said Tommy, glowering at the ground. “In the hall of the hotel, waiting for you to come down.” “Oh!” said Clementina, who had deliberately lingered. “It wasn’t your fault,” said Tommy with dark magnanimity. “It was the fault of that damned glove. She asked me to button it for her. Why do women wear gloves thirty sizes too small for them? Why can’t they wear sensible easy things like a man? I was fussing over the infernal thing—I had somehow got her arm perpendicular in front of her face and I was bending down and she was looking up—oh, can’t you see?” He broke off impatiently. “Oh yes, I can see,” replied Clementina. “And I suppose Etta was utterly indignant?” “That’s the devil of it,” said the conquering but miserable lover. “She wasn’t.” “She wasn’t?” asked Clementina. “No,” said Tommy. “Then I’m shocked at her,” said Clementina. “She was in my charge, enjoying my hospitality. She had no business to fall in love with—with my—” she floundered for a second—“with my invalid guest.” “Pretty sort of invalid I am,” said Tommy, who; through the masquerade of woe, appealed to passers-by, especially to those of the opposite sex, as the embodiment of fair Anglo-Saxon lustiness. “She isn’t to blame, poor dear. I am, and yet, confound it! I’m not—for how could I help it? But what the deuce there is in me, Clementina dear, for the most exquisite thing God ever made to care for, God only knows.”