r us, whether
or no we want to nibble; and just in proportion as they fixatrice, and
crinoline, and cosmetique to hook us, will leave us to die in the sun
when they've once trapped us into the basket.

That night, when Telfer sat down to ecarte, Violet was singing in
another room, out of which her voice came distinctly to us. I noticed he
didn't play quite as well as usual. I don't suppose he could be
listening, though, for he doesn't care for music, and still less for
the Tressillian.

"Mademoiselle," said De Tintiniac, going up to her afterwards, "you can
boast of greater conquests than Orpheus. He only charmed rocks, but you
have distracted the two most inveterate _joueurs_ in Europe."

Telfer looked annoyed. Violet laughed. "Pardon me if I doubt your
compliment. If you were so kind as to listen to me, I have not enough
vanity to think that your opponent would yield to what _he_ would think
such immeasurable weakness."

"You are not magnanimous, Miss Tressillian," said Telfer, in a low tone,
leaning down over the piano. "You are ceaselessly reminding me of a
hasty prejudice, unjustly formed, of which I have told you I am heartily
ashamed."

"A hasty prejudice!" repeated Violet. "I beg your pardon, Major Telfer;
I think ours is a very strong and lasting enmity, as mutual as it is
well founded. Don't contradict me; you know you could have shot me with
as little remorse as a partridge."

"But can you never forget," continued Telfer, impatiently, "that my
enmity, as you please to term it, was grafted on erroneous opinions and
false reports, and will you never credit that when I see myself in the
wrong, I am too just to others to continue in it?"

The Tressillian laughed--a mischievous, _provoquant_ laugh. "No, I
believe neither in sudden conversions nor sudden friendships. Pray do
not trouble yourself to be 'just' to me; you see I did not droop and die
under the shadow of your wrath."

"Oh no," said Telfer, with a sardonic twist of his moustaches, "one
would not accuse you of too much softness, Miss Tressillian."

She colored, and the pride of her family flashed out of her eyes. The
Tressillians are all deucedly proud, and would die sooner than yield an
inch. "If by softness you mean weakness, you are right," she said,
haughtily. "As I have told you, we never forgive injustice."

Telfer frowned. If there was one thing he hated more than another, it
was a woman who had anything hard about her. He smiled his ch