soon lost in the dim woodland, and Tom and I turned to retrace our
steps.

"No doubt about it now, old fellow?" quoth Gower.

"No, confound her!" swore I.

"Confound her? _Et pourquoi!_ Hasn't she a right to do what she likes?"

"Of course she has, the cursed little flirt; but she'd no earthly
business to go making such love to Fairlie. It's a rascally shame, and I
don't care if I tell her so myself."

"She'll only say you're in love with her too," was Gower's sensible
response. "I'm not surprised myself. I always said she was an
out-and-out coquette."

I met Fairlie coming out of his room as I went up to mine. He looked as
men will look when they have not been in bed all night, and have watched
the sun up with painful thoughts for their companions.

"You have been----" he began; then stopped short, unwilling or unable to
put the question into words.

"After Belle? Yes. It is no hoax, Geraldine met him herself."

I did not relish telling him, and therefore told it, in all probability,
bluntly and blunderingly--tact, like talk, having, they say, been given
to women. A spasm passed over his face. "_Herself!_" he echoed. Until
then I do not think he had realized it as even possible.

"Yes, there was no doubt about it. What a wretched little coquette she
must have been; she always seemed to make such game of Belle----"

But Fairlie, saying something about his gloves that he had left behind,
had gone back into his room again before I had half done my sentence.
When Belle came back, about half an hour afterwards, with an affected
air of triumph, and for once in his life of languid sensations really
well contented, Gower and I poured questions upon him, as, done up with
the toil of his dusty walk, and horrified to find himself so low-bred as
to be hot, he kicked off his varnished boots, imbibed Seltzer, and
fanned himself with a periodical before he could find breath to answer
us.

"Was it Geraldine?"

"Of course it was Geraldine," he said, yawning.

"And will she marry you, Belle?"

"To be sure she will. I should like to see the woman that wouldn't,"
responded Belle, shutting his eyes and nestling down among the cushions.
"And what's more, I've been fool enough to let her make me ask her. Give
me some more sherry, Phil; a man wants support under such circumstances.
The deuce if I'm not as hot as a ploughboy! It was very cruel of her to
call a fellow out with the sun at the meridian; she might as well have
c