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197 'You are a bad man!' she said.

'You do not mean it?' I said saucily. You are a good wom …' She had in a moment smitten me smartly on the cheek with the palm of her hand! I burst out into bright laughter, catching her, as she sat bolt upright with an expression half-startled, half-defiant, in my arms, and smothering her cheeks and lips with kisses.…

But the experiment was spoilt. Perhaps it was premature.

I wondered that night, or rather morning, as I lay awake thinking in the grey light, while she slept gently like a child beside me, why I had attempted that experiment, and what I had quite meant by it? And wondering, I fell asleep.

The next evening, I met the Professor at the Gare du Nord, as we had arranged, and (he, at the end of our walk up and down in the hall, commending Rosy to my care as a last sudden thought which I felt he hadn't liked to broach as of any other sort) I saw the last of him that was to be seen, and turned away a little sadly.

As I walked home to Rosy, who was waiting for me (to go out a walk she had said, and I had half agreed), I had a feeling that we two, she and I, were going through a somewhat difficult stage of development, and thought of it, as usual now, half vaguely. When I opened our door, I found her seated on the ottoman in the hall, dressed in furs, waiting.

'Dear girl,' I said, drawing out the latchkey, 'it's quite warm out. How can you expect to walk quickly when you're muffled up like a mummy? And stays on underneath, I'll be bound.' I was smiling. She came towards me with a saucy strut, holding up her dress, so to show her small pointed boots and pretty coloured stockings. I looked at them and said:

'Oh, frightful!' She caught me by the arm and half-swung there.

'You 're in such a good temper to-day!' she said, laughing. 'We'll go to a nice cafe on the boulevard, and drink café noir, in nice china cups, and play at dominoes. I do like dominoes. We will—Eh?'