"No," Mr. Barrowe protested. "If you cleave my heart in twain I shall try to live the better with the other half of it."
"I should not like to cleave it in twain," said Pauline. "It is too capable and healthy a heart for that. I should only try to make it beat with more temperate strokes.... Au revoir, then. If you should meet Mr. Prawle outside, tell him that you are sorry."
"Sorry? But his poem was abominable!"
"All the more reason for you to be magnanimously sorry.... Ah, here he is!"
Here Mr. Leander Prawle indeed was, but as he entered the room Mr. Barrowe slipped past him, and with a suddenness that almost prevented his identification on the part of the new-comer....
"Mrs. Varick," exclaimed Leander Prawle, while he pressed the hand of his hostess. "I came here because duty prompted me to come."
"I hope pleasure had a little to do with the matter, Mr. Prawle," said Pauline, while indicating a lounge on which they were both presently seated.
Mr. Prawle looked just as pale as when Pauline had last seen him, just as dark-haired, and just as dark-eyed; but the ironical fatigue had somehow left his visage; there was a totally new expression there.
"I suppose," he began, with his black eyes very fixedly directed upon Pauline's face, "that you have heard of the ... the 'Morning Monitor's' outrageous...."
"Yes, Mr. Prawle," Pauline broke in. "I have heard all about it."