"Yes," said Stella, humbly. "So do I; I see that now. It was silly and interfering. Only, if you had been interested—"
"I wasn't in the least interested," said Julian, implacably, "but I'm glad you agree about your moral obliquity. My mother, of course, was worse; but there is no criminal so deep seated in her career as a woman under the sway of the maternal instinct. One allows for that. And now, Miss Waring, since neither of us likes being done good to, and since it's bad for you to go back to the town hall, and worse for me to remain unemployed, shall we pool this shocking state of things and write the book together?"
"Oh!" cried Stella with a little gasp. "But are you sure you want to?"
Julian laughed.
"I may be politer than Ostrog," he said, "but I assure you that, like him, unless reduced by force, I never do what I don't want to."
"And you haven't been reduced?" Stella asked a little doubtfully.
"Well," said Julian, beginning to place his chessmen, "I don't think so; do you? Where was the force?"
Stella could not answer this question, and Lady Verny, who might have been capable of answering it, was up-stairs.