But his manner, despite its banter, lacked assurance. He felt that she was not in the least deceived. "And you never told me!" she said reproachfully. "There is nothing to tell. My love affairs never lead anywhere. Besides, it's such an old story." "Old!" she echoed. He smiled at the indignant incredulity in her voice. "It's running Jacob's romance pretty close now," he said. "You are trying to put me off the scent," she declared,--"if there is any scent. You won't persuade me that you have been in love for seven years, and that I knew nothing about it." "Six years and nearly nine months, to be exact," he answered. "And who, may I ask, was fortunate enough to win your unswerving devotion six years and nine months ago?" she demanded, with fine sarcasm. "She hadn't a personality for me," he replied. "I fell in love with a face." His listener eyed him derisively. "She hadn't any body, I suppose?" she said. "Oh, yes, I believe so. The body was there, all right. But if it had been misshapen, or even, as you suggest, non-existent, that wouldn't have made the slightest difference to my affections." "Oh, don't try to humbug me!" Mrs Carruthers exclaimed. "You can't convince me, after all you have said, that you are in love with nothing more substantial than a face. Where is the girl now?" "She disappeared," he answered vaguely. "I took the trouble to inquire, believe me. They told me she had married." "That disposes of her," Mrs Carruthers responded, with that touch of finality which convention brings to bear upon romance that can have no legitimate ending. "It is not decent of you to talk as though you were in love with her still. That's all finished, anyhow." "One cannot regulate one's feelings," he protested, "to satisfy a silly prejudice like that." "But it's not fair to the girl," she urged. "Good lord!" he ejaculated. "The girl doesn't know... How should she? Didn't I tell you that I fell in love with a face?--Its owner was a stranger to me. I intended to effect an introduction; but some fellow got ahead of me, and carried her off." "Oh!" said Mrs Carruthers, manifestly relieved. "A stranger! Then she doesn't count. You have simply been wearying me with your nonsense." "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you were genuinely interested. When you are bored you shouldn't appear so eager for details. In a desire to be obliging one is apt to become prosy." Carruthers entered the room at the moment with a syphon of soda and glasses. Dare eyed the syphon discontentedly. "I hope you are for offering me something more heartening than that," he remarked. "Your wife has reduced me to a state bordering on nervous collapse. She is starting a matrimonial agency. I wish you would bear me out in the lie that I've got a wife somewhere. I fancy she thinks it is not respectable to be unmarried."