leaped, flaming, to her feet.

"It's my own heart, and I know best what it can stand! And--and--there
are snakes--and rats--and insects, crawly-creepy things dropping from
the ceilings! He can have anyone he likes... I don't care... I don't
want him. I'll stay at home!" She dashed wildly from the room.

Antony and his aunt stared blankly at each other. The Squire chuckled
complacently and rubbed his hands.

"_That's_ all right," he cried cheerily. "That's done it. She'll go
with you, my boy. She'll go all right. Book a second passage
to-morrow, and I'll stand the risk."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

At dinner that night there was an air of festival. The feast was
sumptuous, the table was decorated with exquisite hothouse flowers,
purely, spotlessly white--a bridal white, unmistakable in its
significance. Juliet blushed as she beheld that table, and blushed
again looking down on her own white robe. Upstairs in her own room she
had cried, and stormed, and blushed, and trembled, and vowed fiercely to
leave the house by the first train on the following morning, and sobbed
again at the thought of departure. Also, she had vowed with fervour to
be cold as ice to Antony Maplestone, and to prove to him by the
haughtiness of her demeanour that his caress was unpardonable, without
excuse. And then, being a woman, and a particularly feminine one at
that, she had naturally selected her very best dress, and had arrayed
herself therein for his delectation.

Now what bad luck that the dress happened to be white!

The Squire over-ate himself recklessly. "Hang it all, my dear," he
informed his protesting wife, "a man can't always be thinking of diet.
There _are_ occasions--" He nodded meaningly towards his guest, and
quaffed a bumper of champagne.

After dinner, when the pseudo-lovers were left alone for the nightly
_tete-a-tete_, the subject of the Squire's indiscretion was eagerly
seized upon as a subject for conversation, to lessen the embarrassment
from which both were suffering.

Said Antony, "It's madness. He has not yet recovered from the last
attack. One would think that a man who has suffered such agonies would
have learned wisdom!"

Said Juliet gloomily, "Who does? Nobody does! It certainly doesn't
become _us_ to--er--"

"Oh, well," he interrupted quickly, "let's hope he escapes this time.
It's hard on a man to be everlastingly prudent. I'm not at a