oth the men servants were dumb--an odd circumstance, but
Lionel was getting used to oddity. He expressed surprise one day, hoping
to draw out his hostess. She was frank about the matter: "They are dumb,
poor creatures, but their affliction is my gain. Most servants gossip or
argue. Mine do neither, and that is why I was at some pains to engage
them. It works very well, though a stranger is naturally surprised at
first."

The more he saw of her, the more he admired. The primness of her
attitude, when he began to know her better, struck him as being anything
but ineradicable; she was in some things exceedingly human. They were
talking one afternoon of Christian Science, and Lionel asked her if she
really believed there was no such thing as pain.

"Of course," she said promptly. "Pain is merely ignorance."

"Then you must admit," he said, "that there can be no pleasure."

She was puzzled. "How so?"

"Everything must have its foil. Good requires evil as its negative, or
there is--nothing. So to feel pleasure one must postulate pain.
Otherwise you are incapable of pleasure."

"Oh, but I'm _not_!" she said impulsively, and laughed.

"Then where are your science and your logic?"

"You mean I am a woman and illogical." She parried, evading the dilemma.
"When you understand our true position you will realize how fallacious
are your arguments. Now, what do you think of _Pendennis_?"

He laughed again, but talked Thackeray willingly enough. When, a few
moments later, she idly plucked a rose and pricked her finger on a
thorn, giving a little cry, he said humorously, "Ignorance, not pain!"
She disdained to notice him, but smelt the rose luxuriously. "The
illusion of pleasure?" he suggested, pressing the thrust home. Her eyes
sparkled with indignation, but he smiled into them unafraid. They were
getting on capitally, he felt, and it was pleasant to find Miss
Arkwright so much of a woman. She would pay for flirtatious treatment,
he thought villainously, reflecting what a shame it was that lips so
alluring should be unkissed. Lionel, you may have observed, was an
adaptable creature. Fickle? Surely not. He had mapped his course and
was steering strictly according to compass. While Beatrice was still a
grass-widow the more innocent paths of dalliance showed no warning
board, "Trespassers will be Prosecuted." They were not applauded, it is
true--and here he readily confessed his weakness,--but they were not
forbidden. So why, in