Are_ you really?" he asked--and there was a touch of the comic in
hearing him put it with his inveterate gravity.

"If you take me for anything else," I replied, "I doubt if you'll find
anyone to back you."

My companion, on this, looked away for a little, turned about, fixed his
eyes on the house, seemed, as with a drop of interest, on the point of
leaving me. But instead of leaving me he brought out the next moment: "I
don't want anyone to back me. I don't care. I didn't mean just now," he
continued, "that Mrs. Server has said to me anything against you, or
that she fears you because she dislikes you. She only told me she
thought you disliked _her_."

It gave me a kind of shock. "A creature so beautiful, and so--so----"

"So what?" he asked as I found myself checked by my desire to come to
her aid.

"Well, so brilliantly happy."

I had all his attention again. "Is that what she _is_?"

"Then don't you, with your opportunities, know?" I was conscious of
rather an inspiration, a part of which was to be jocose. "What are you
trying," I laughed, "to get out of me?"

It struck me luckily that, though he remained as proof against gaiety as
ever, he was, thanks to his preoccupation, not disagreeably affected by
my tone. "Of course if you've no idea, I can get nothing."

"No idea of what?"

Then it was that I at last got it straight. "Well, of what's the matter
with her."

"Is there anything particular? If there _is_," I went on, "there's
something that I've got out of _you_!"

"How so, if you don't know what it is?"

"Do you mean if you yourself don't?" But without detaining him on this,
"Of what in especial do the signs," I asked, "consist?"

"Well, of everyone's thinking so--that there's something or other."

This again struck me, but it struck me too much. "Oh, everyone's a
fool!"

He saw, in his queer wan way, how it had done so. "Then you _have_ your
own idea?"

I daresay my smile at him, while I waited, showed a discomfort. "Do you
mean people are talking about her?"

But he waited himself. "Haven't they shown you----?"

"No, no one has spoken. Moreover I wouldn't have let them."

"Then there you _are_!" Brissenden exclaimed. "If you've kept them off,
it must be because you differ with them."

"I shan't be sure of that," I returned, "till I know what they think!
However, I repeat," I added, "that I shouldn't even then care. I don't
mind admitting that she much interests me."

"There you are