ely in a friendly way, as
I should to anyone I wished well. Though for that matter I might have
some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you've
been in. I hate a woman who is in such a hurry.'

'How do you mean that?'

'Why--to be somebody's wife or other--anything's wife rather than
nobody's. You couldn't wait for me, O, no. Well, thank God, I'm cured
of all that!'

'How merciless you are!' she said bitterly. 'Wait for you? What does
that mean, Charley? You never showed--anything to wait for--anything
special towards me.'

'O come, Baptista dear; come!'

'What I mean is, nothing definite,' she expostulated. 'I suppose you
liked me a little; but it seemed to me to be only a pastime on your
part, and that you never meant to make an honourable engagement of
it.'

'There, that's just it! You girls expect a man to mean business at the
first look. No man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any
definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is
meaning a vulgar mercenary marriage. However, I did at last mean an
honourable engagement, as you call it, come to that.'

'But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a
woman's position and credit, sooner than you think.'

'Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked
you to marry me.'

She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very
uncomfortable. Presently he said, 'Would you have waited for me if you
had known?' To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, 'Yes!'

They went still farther in silence--passing along one of the beautiful
walks on the outskirts of the town, yet not observant of scene or
situation. Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped
his fingers round the small of her arm--quite lightly, and without any
attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, 'Now I hold you, and my
will must be yours.'

Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, 'I have merely run
down here for a day or two from school near Trufal, before going off
to the north for the rest of my holiday. I have seen my relations at
Redrutin quite lately, so I am not going there this time. How little
I thought of meeting you! How very different the circumstances would
have been if, instead of parting again as we must in half-an-hour or
so, possibly for ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my
wife, on our honeymoon trip. Ha--ha--well--so humorou