."
Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terrible
rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whom
her growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would make
it sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcastic
congratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for that?
"It is impossible," she muttered; "impossible! _Snooks!_"

She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For him
she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all the
time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanour
the badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it in
the language of sentimental science she felt he had "led her on."

There were, of course, moments of terrible vacillation, a period even when
something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. And
there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity that made
a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a name
after all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when Fanny
came with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the horror.
Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said _Snooks_. Miss
Winchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese,
she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note.

She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, the
little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was ambiguous,
allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected him than she could
have told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel something of the
unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided a dozen chances of
telling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of "obstacles she could not
reveal"--"reasons why the thing he spoke of was impossible." She addressed
the note with a shiver, "E.K. Snooks."

Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How
_could_ she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. She
was haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had given
him intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughly
for the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the most
changeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not even
perceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter he