e; but you see we've been such fools that, when
something really good at last comes up, it's too dreadfully awkward.
The fools we were capable of being--well, you know better than any
one: unless perhaps not quite so well as Mr. Connery. It has got to
be denied," said Julia ardently--"it has got to be denied flat. But I
can't get hold of Mr. Connery--Mr. Connery has gone to China. Besides,
if he were here," she had ruefully to confess, "he'd be no good--on
the contrary. He wouldn't deny anything--he'd only tell more. So thank
heaven he's away--there's _that_ amount of good! I'm not engaged yet,"
she went on--but he had already taken her up.

"You're not engaged to Mr. French?" It was all, clearly, a wondrous
show for him, but his immediate surprise, oddly, might have been
greatest for that.

"No, not to any one--for the seventh time!" She spoke as with her head
held well up both over the shame and the pride. "Yes, the next time
I'm engaged I want something to happen. But he's afraid; he's afraid
of what may be told him. He's dying to find out, and yet he'd die
if he did! He wants to be talked to, but he has got to be talked to
right. You could talk to him right, Mr. Pitman--if you only _would_!
He can't get over mother--that I feel: he loathes and scorns divorces,
and we've had first and last too many. So if he could hear from you
that you just made her life a hell--why," Julia concluded, "it would
be too lovely. If she _had_ to go in for another--after having
already, when I was little, divorced father--it would 'sort of' make,
don't you see? one less. You'd do the high-toned thing by her: you'd
say what a wretch you then were, and that she had had to save her
life. In that way he mayn't mind it. Don't you see, you sweet man?"
poor Julia pleaded. "Oh," she wound up as if his fancy lagged or his
scruple looked out, "of course I want you to _lie_ for me!"

It did indeed sufficiently stagger him. "It's a lovely idea for the
moment when I was just saying to myself--as soon as I saw you--that
you'd speak the truth for _me_!"

"Ah, what's the matter with 'you'?" Julia sighed with an impatience
not sensibly less sharp for her having so quickly scented some lion in
her path.

"Why, do you think there's no one in the world but you who has seen
the cup of promised affection, of something really to be depended on,
only, at the last moment, by the horrid jostle of your elbow, spilled
all over you? I want to provide for my fu