giving time. It is cruel, as being full of sarcasm. It----In
fact what is it it _cannot_ do?

Joyce's feet have grown quite steady now. She has placed her hands on
the table behind her, and thus compelled to lean a little forward,
stands studying the carpet without seeing it. A sense of anger, of
_shame_ against herself is troubling her. If he should _not_ be in
earnest! If he should not--like her as she likes him!

She rouses herself suddenly as if stung by some thought. "Like" _is_ the
word. It has gone no deeper yet. It _shall_ not. He is handsome, he has
his charm, but if she is not all the world to him, why, he shall not be
all the world to _her_. If it is money he craves, for the restoration of
that old home of his, why money let it be. But there, shall not be the
two things, the desire of one for filthy lucre, the desire of the other
for love. He shall decide.

She has grown very pale. She has drawn herself up to her full height,
and her lips are pressed together. And now a strange thought comes to
her. If--_if_ she loved him, could she bear thus to analyze him. To take
him to pieces, to dissect him as it were? Once again that feeling of
fear oppresses her. Is she so cold, so deliberate in herself that she
suspects others of coldness. After all--if he does love her--if he only
hesitates because----

_A step outside the door!_

Instinctively she glances at one of the long mirrors that line the walls
from floor to ceiling. Involuntarily her hands rush to her head. She
gives a little touch to her gown. And now is sitting in a
lounging-chair, a little pale still perhaps, but in all other respects
the very picture of unconsciousness. It is--it must be----

It isn't, however.

Mr. Browne, opening the door in his own delightfully breezy fashion that
generally plays old Harry with the hinges and blows the ornaments off
the nearest tables, advances towards her with arms outspread, and the
liveliest admiration writ upon his features, which, to say the truth,
are of goodly proportions.

"Oh! Thou wonder of the world!" cries he in accents ecstatic. He has
been reading "Cleopatra" (that most charming of books) assiduously for
the past few days, during which time he has made himself an emphatic
nuisance to his friends: perpetual quotations, however apt or salutary,
proving as a rule a bore.

"That will do, Dicky! We _all_ know about that," says Miss Kavanagh, who
is a little unnerved, a little impatient perhaps. Mr