time, at peace with all the world. "Never had the privilege of
seeing his visiting-list."

"I wonder who she can be," continued my wife. "He--he hasn't said
anything to you, has he, dear?" she inquired, in a tentative voice.

I slowly opened one of my hitherto closed eyes, and cocked it
suspiciously at the diplomatist sitting opposite to me. (The Twins and
Robin were out at the theatre.) Then, observing that she was stealthily
regarding me through her eyelashes--a detestable trick which some women
have--I solemnly agitated my eyelid some three or four times and gently
closed it again.

"Has he confided any of his love affairs to you, I mean?" continued
Kitty, quite unabashed.

"If you eat any more chocolates you will make yourself sick," I
observed.

"Yes, dear," said my wife submissively, pushing away the bon-bon dish.
"But has he?"

"Are you trying to pump me?"

"Oh, gracious, no! What would be the good? I only asked a plain
question. You men are such creatures for screening each other, though,
that it's never any use asking a man anything about another man."

"True for you. As a matter of fact, Robin has hardly said a word to me
on the subject of women since first I met him."

Kitty thoughtfully cracked a filbert with her teeth--an unladylike habit
about which I have often spoken to her--and said--

"What exciting chats you must have!" Then she added reflectively--

"I expect it's a girl in Scotland. A sort of Highland lassie, in a kilt,
or whatever female Highlanders wear."

"Why should a novel about the Stock Exchange 'owe its inception' to a
Highland lassie?"

Kitty took another filbert.

"That's 'vurry bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to
say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear,
but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!)
But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever
been sentimental with you--quoted poetry, or anything?"

"N-no. Stop, though! He did once quote Burns to me, but that was _a
propos_ of poetry in general, not of love-making."

I remembered the incident well. Robin had picked up at a bookstall a
copy of an early and quite valuable edition of Burns' poems. He had sat
smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the
pages of the tattered volume, and quoting bits, in broad vernacular,
from "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Cottar's Saturday Night." Suddenly he
began, almost to