wered. 'If I were
just a nice dull girl, you would only have to lay down the law, and I
should have to accept it. Or else you would not feel obliged to talk to
me at all, which would be simpler.'

'Much,' said Lushington, with some acerbity.

'So much simpler, that I wonder why you do not follow the line of least
resistance!'

A short silence came after this suggestion, and Margaret turned over
the pages of her book as if making up her mind where to begin reading.
This was not quite a pretence, for Lushington had told her that it was
a book she ought to read, which it was her intellectual duty to read,
and which would develop her reasoning faculties. By way of
encouragement he had added that she would probably not like it. On that
point she agreed with him readily. To people who read much, every new
book has a personality, features and an expression, attractive, dull,
or repulsive, like most human beings one meets for the first time. This
particular book had a particularly priggish expression, like
Lushington's yellow shoes, which were too good and too new, and which
he was examining with apparent earnestness. To tell the truth he did
not see them, for he was wondering whether the blush of annoyance he
felt was unusually visible. The result of thinking about it was that it
deepened to scarlet at once.

'You look hot,' observed Margaret, with an exasperating smile.

'Not at all,' answered Lushington, feeling as if she had rubbed his
cheeks with red pepper. 'I suppose I am sunburnt.'

Tiny beads of perspiration were gathering on his forehead, and he knew
by her smile that she saw them. It would have been delightful to walk
into the pond just then, yellow shoes and all.

He told himself that he was Edmund Lushington, the distinguished critic
and reviewer, before whom authors trembled and were afraid. It was
absurd that he should feel too hot because a mere girl had said
something smart and disagreeable. In fact, what she had said was little
short of an impertinence, in his opinion.

The fool who does not know that he looks a fool is happy. The fool who
is conscious of looking one undergoes real pain. But of all the
miserable victims of shyness, the one most to be pitied is the
sensitive, gifted man who is perfectly aware that he looks silly while
rightly conscious that he is not. Margaret Donne watched Lushington,
and knew that she was amply revenged. He would call her 'Miss Donne'
presently, and say something ab