"It would not be much of a spirit if it were not," replies she, with a pretty air of perfectly sincere disparagement of her own slight proportions; "I know that I look a poor thing, but I am rather a fraud: I do not tire easily; I am not tired now."

"Bored, then?" with a slight accent of pique.

She lifts her sweet look, with a sort of hurry of denial in it.

"Most distinctly not."

"You would like to go on, then?"

"Yes."

"Or back?"

She hesitates, her eye exploring his with, as he feels, a genuine anxiety in it to discover what his own wishes are, so that her decision may jump with them.

"Yes—perhaps; I have really no choice."

He both looks at and speaks to her with a streak of exasperation.