ught when I gave the nod to Isabella your friend.'

'You like her?'

'You, too.'

'One fancies she would make an encouraging second in a duel.'

'I will remember . . . when I call you out.'

'Oh, my dear lord, you have dozens to choose from leave me my one if we
are to enter the lists.'

'We are, it seems; unless you consent to take the run to Paris. You are
to say Tom or Rowsley.'

'The former, I can never feel at home in saying; Rowsley is Lady
Charlotte's name for you.'

The name of Lady Charlotte was an invitation to the conflict between
them. He passed it, and said 'Durandarte runs a mile on the mouth, and
the Coriolanus of their newspapers helps a stage-player to make lantern
jaws. Neither of them comes well from the lips of my girl. After seven
years she should have hit on a nickname, of none of the Christian suit. I
am not "at home" either with "my lord." However, you send me off to Paris
alone; and you'll be alone and dull here in this London. Incomprehensible
to me why!'

'We are both wondering?' said Aminta.

'You 're handsomer than when I met you first--by heaven you are!'

She flushed her dark brown-red late-sunset. 'Brunes are exceptional in
England.'

'Thousands admiring you, of course! I know, my love, I have a jewel.'

She asked him: 'What are jewels for?' and he replied, 'To excite
cupidity.'

'When they 're shut in a box?'

'Ware burglars! But this one is not shut up. She shuts herself up. And up
go her shoulders! Decide to be out of it, and come to Paris for some life
for a month. No? It's positive? When do you expect your little school
friend?'

'After Easter. Aunt will be away.'

'Your little friend likes the country. I'll go to my house agents. If
there 's a country house open on the upper Thames, you can have swimming,
boating, botanizing . . .'

He saw her throat swallow. But as he was offering agreeable things he
chose to not understand how he was to be compassionate.

'Steignton?' she said, and did her cause no good by saying it feebly.

His look of a bygone awake-in-sleep old look, drearily known to her, was
like a strip of sunlight on a fortress wall. It signified, Is the poor
soul pushing me back to that again?

She compelled herself to say: 'Your tenant there?'

'Matter of business . . . me and my tenant,' he remarked. 'The man pays
punctually.'

'The lease has expired.'

'Not quite. You are misinformed.'

'At Easter.'

'Ah! Question of renewing.'

'Yo