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 to distress me any more now. I shall think of everything—of course you know that. But it will take me a long time. That's all I can tell you now, but I think you ought to be content.' He was obliged to say that he was content, and they resumed their walk in the direction of the hotel. Shortly before they reached it Agatha exclaimed with a certain irrelevance, 'You ought to go there first; then you would know.'

'Then I should know what?'

'Whether you would like it.'

'Like your great country? Good Lord, what difference does it make whether I like it or not?'

'No—that's just it—you don't care,' said Agatha; 'yet you said to my brother that you wanted immensely to go.'

'So I do; I am ashamed not to have been; that's an immense drawback to-day, in England, to a man in public life. Something has always stopped me off, tiresomely, from year to year. Of course I shall go the very first moment I can take the time.'

'It's a pity you didn't go this year instead of coming down here,' the girl observed, rather sententiously.

'I thank my stars I didn't!' he responded, in a very different tone.

'Well, I should try to make you like it,' she went on. 'I think it very probable I should succeed.'

'I think it very probable you could do with me exactly whatever you might attempt.'

'Oh, you hypocrite!' the girl exclaimed; and it was on this that she separated from him and went into the house. It soothed him to see her do so