"

"And it also seems to you that that would be very easy?"

"Now you're in one of your fencing moods--there's no plain English to be
got out of you."

"Fencing is useful to parry thrusts, Austin."

"Heavens, have I been making thrusts at you? You mean about that
miserable Powers?"

She sat there looking at me, with the mystery smile on her lips; but her
brow was knit. "Yes, about Powers," she said--after a pause, but without
hesitation. The manner of her answer said plainly "Call it about
Powers--it is about something else." So I think she meant me to read it.
She told me that there was some trouble lest, suspecting but not
knowing, I should make wild thrusts and wound her blindly.

"No one but you would put up with such an impertinent retainer," I said.

"You always stop when I want you to. And I rather like--sometimes--to
try over my feelings and ideas in talk. One gets a kind of outside look
at them in that way." She broke into a little laugh. "And I must keep
you in a good temper, because I've a favor to ask. Are we going to be
terribly busy in the immediate future?"

"I should think so--with your Institute!"

"No time for riding?" she suggested insinuatingly.

"Oh, well, one must consider one's health."

"I don't want to give up my morning ride; but I want you to come with
me--well, as often as you can. Make it the regular thing to come,
barring most pressing business."

"I see what I get out of this, Lady Jenny. Now what do you?"

"I knew you'd ask that. Of course I'm never disinterested!"

"I won't ask. I'll take the gift Heaven sends!"

"I daren't leave it like that. You're too conscientious; you'd stay at
home and work. I'm afraid I must give you the reason."

Her thoughts had passed away, it seemed, from the difficulty which had
made her now irritable, now melancholy, while we talked about reasoning
and being "driven." She was gay and chaffed me with enjoyment. If there
were any perplexity in the case here, evidently it struck her as a
comedy, complicated by no threat of a tragic catastrophe. Her lips
twitched with merriment.

"Yes, you must have it--and really plain English this time--no
fencing--the downright blunt truth!"

"I wait for it."

"Lord Lacey comes home on leave to-morrow."

The explanation here was certainly plain. In fact it was both plain and
pregnant. While it confessed to a flirtation in the past, it also
admitted a project for the future.

"I must ride as often as