ht. "In my opinion he's a liar; I was
going to say '_pur et simple_,' but he is neither pure nor simple."

"A liar!" says Joyce, as if shocked. Some old thought recurs to her. She
turns quickly to Miss Maliphant. The thought grows into words almost
before she is aware of it. "Have you a cousin in India?" asks she.

"In India?" Miss Maliphant regards her with some surprise. Why this
sudden absurd question in an interesting conversation about that
"Judas"? I regret to say this is what Miss Maliphant has now decided
upon naming Mr. Beauclerk when talking to herself.

"Yes, India."

"Not one. Plenty in Manchester and Birmingham, but not one in India."

Joyce leans back in her chair, and a strange laugh breaks from her. She
gets up suddenly and goes to the other and leans over her, as though the
better to see her.

"Oh, think--think," says she. "Not a cousin you loved? Dearly loved? A
cousin for whom you were breaking your heart, who was not as steady as
he ought to be, but who----"

"You must be going out of your mind," says Miss Maliphant, drawing back
from her. "If you saw my Birmingham cousins, or even the Manchester
ones, you wouldn't ask that question twice. They think of nothing but
money, money, money, from morning till night, and are essentially
shoppy. I don't mind saying it, you know. It is as good to give up, and
acknowledge things--and certainly they----"

"Never mind them. It is the Indian cousin in whom I am interested," says
Joyce, impatiently. "You are sure, sure that you haven't one out there?
One whom Mr. Beauclerk knew about? And who was in love with you, and you
with him. The cousin he told me of----"

"Mr. Beauclerk?"

"Yes--yes. The night of the ball at the Court, last autumn. I saw you
with Mr. Beauclerk in the garden then, and he told me afterward you had
been confiding in him about your cousin. The one in India. That you were
going to be married to him. Oh! there must be truth--some truth in it.
Do try to think!"

"If," says Miss Maliphant, slowly, "I were to think until I was black in
the face, as black as any Indian of 'em all, I couldn't even by so
severe a process conjure up a cousin in Hindostan! And so he told you
that?"

"Yes," says Joyce faintly. She feels almost physically ill.

"He's positively unique," says Miss Maliphant, after a slight pause. "I
told you just now that he was a liar, but I didn't throw sufficient
enthusiasm into the assertion. He is a liar of distinction