"Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!"

It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing.
"Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed.

"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them
bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what
I've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself
married to her."

"There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at
the rate you go on."

"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility," said my companion.
"She'll marry--she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title as well as a
fortune.

"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of
suggesting.

She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting
a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any
one TELL," asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?"

Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on
her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through the
dusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son."

"Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him for