He was immensely taken with Miss Trumpet, he allowed, and could almost look upon the matter as a pleasure instead of a duty now.

"If you had shown the slightest sign that you would ever care for me, I should not have thought of her, though," he said. "You will be sorry, one day, that you are as cold as ice."

"Why should a person be accused of having no musical sense because one particular tune does not cause one rhapsodies?" I asked. "The one idea of a man seems to be, if a woman does not adore him personally, it is because she is as cold as ice. Surely that is illogical."

He looked at me very straightly for a moment.

"I believe you do care for some one," he said. "I shall watch and see."

"Very well," I laughed.

None of the people I have met since my marriage have seemed to think it possible that I should care for Augustus, or that my wedding-ring should be the slightest bar to my feelings or their advances.

"You are a dangerously attractive woman, you know—one's idea of what a lady ought to look like. And you move with a grace one never sees now. And your eyes—your eyes are the eyes of the Sphinx. I fancy, if I could make you care, I would forget all the world. I am glad you are going to-morrow."

"I understood you to say you were greatly attracted by Miss Trumpet,"
I said, demurely.

And so the evening passed.