the terrace above she seemed almost to push me to leave her--I felt her
fine consecrated hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to do
as she prescribed; she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn,"
and I wanted to get away from her. But before I went I asked her why
Linda should regard my young man as such a parti; it didn't square after
all with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that account
these favours to one so graceless were a woeful waste of time.

"Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in every
light," said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because she
sees what she can do."

"Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?"

My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do you
take us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point of
view and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech.
We never for a moment name anything ugly--we only just go at it. We can
take definitions, which are awkward things, for granted."

"But in this case," I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possibly
be aware of your point of view."

"No," she conceded--"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course she
couldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But
it was open to her to do the same."

"What do you mean by the same?"

"She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been