dry; an agonized certainty that she
is slowly growing crimson beneath his steady gaze brings the tears to
her eyes.

"Too early. I quite hoped to be up to see her off, but sleep had made
its own of me and I failed to wake. Such a good, genuine girl! Universal
favorite, don't you think? Very honest, and very," breaking into an
apparently irrepressible laugh, "ugly! Ah! well now," with smiling self
condemnation, "that's really a little too bad; isn't it?"

"A great deal too bad," says Joyce, gravely. "I shouldn't speak of her
if I were you."

"But why, my dear girl?" with arched brows and a little gesture of his
handsome hands. "I allow her everything but beauty, and surely it would
be hypocrisy to mention that in the same breath with her."

"It isn't fair--it isn't sincere," says the girl almost passionately.
"Do you think I am ignorant of everything, that I did not see you with
her last night in the garden? Oh!" with a touch of scorn that is yet
full of pain, "you should not. You should not, indeed!"

In an instant he grows confused. Something in the lovely horror of her
eyes undoes him. Only for an instant--after that he turns the momentary
confusion to good account.

"Ah! you did see her, then, poor girl!" says he. "Well, I'm sorry about
that for her sake."

"Why for her sake?" still regarding him with that charming disdain. "For
your own, perhaps, but why for hers?"

Beauclerk pauses: then rising suddenly, stands before her. Grief and
gentle indignation sit upon his massive brow. He looks the very
incarnation of injured rectitude.

"Do you know, Joyce, you have always been ready to condemn, to misjudge
me," says he in a low, hurt tone. "I have often noticed it, yet have
failed to understand why it is. I was right, you see, when I told myself
last night and this morning that you were harboring unkindly thoughts
toward me. You have not been open with me, you have been willfully
secretive, and, believe me, that is a mistake. Candor, complete and
perfect, is the only great virtue that will steer one clear through all
the shoals and rocks of life. Be honest, above board, and, I can assure
you, you will never regret it. You accused me just now of insincerity.
Have you been sincere?"

There is a dead pause. He allows it to last long enough to make it
dramatic, and to convince himself he has impressed her, and then, with a
very perceptible increase of dignified pain in his voice, he goes on.

"I feel I ought n