I
myself, who----"

"Oh, no!" says Hardinge. "_All!_ All of us detest ourselves now and
again, or at least we think we do. It comes to the same thing, but
you--you have no cause."

"I should have if I danced," says she, "and I couldn't bear the after
reproach, so I don't do it."

"And yet--yet you would _like_ to dance?"

"I don't know----" She hesitates, and suddenly looks up at him with eyes
as full of sorrow as of mirth. "At all events I know _this_," says she,
"that I wish the band would not play such nice waltzes!"

Hardinge gives way to laughter, and presently she laughs too, but
softly, and as if afraid of being heard, and as if too a little ashamed
of herself. Her color rises, a delicate warm color that renders her
absolutely adorable.

"Shall I order them to stop?" asks Hardinge, laughing still, yet with
something in his gaze that tells her he _would_ forbid them to play if
he could, if only to humor her.

"No!" says she, "and after all,"--philosophically--"enjoyment is only a
name."

"That's all!" says Hardinge, smiling. "But a very good one."

"Let us forget it," with a little sigh, "and talk of something else,
something pleasanter."

"Than enjoyment?"

She gives way to his mood and laughs afresh.

"Ah! you have me there!" says she.

"I have not, indeed," he returns, quietly and with meaning. "Neither
there, nor anywhere."

He gets up suddenly, and going to her, bends over the chair on which she
is sitting.

"We were talking of what?" asks she, with admirable courage, "of names,
was it not? An endless subject. _My_ name now? An absurd one surely.
Perpetua! I don't like Perpetua, do you?" She is evidently talking at
random.

"I do indeed!" says Hardinge, promptly and fervently. His tone
accentuates his meaning.

"Oh, but so harsh, so unusual!"

"Unusual! That in itself constitutes a charm."

"I was going to add, however--disagreeable."

"Not that--never that," Says Hardinge.

"You mean to say you really _like_ Perpetua?" her large soft eyes
opening with amazement.

"It is a poor word," says he, his tone now very low. "If I dared say
that I _adored_ 'Perpetua,' I should be----"

"Oh, you laugh at me," interrupts she with a little impatient gesture,
"you _know_ how crude, how strange, how----"

"I don't indeed. Why should you malign yourself like that?
You--_you_--who are----"

He stops short, driven to silence by a look in the girl's eyes.

"What have _I_ to do with it? I