“Well, what about me?” he cries tartly, irritated (and no wonder) by my open mouth and tragical air.

“What has brought you here?” I ask slowly, and with a tactless emphasis.

“The fly from the White Hart,” he answers, trying to laugh, but looking confused and angry.

“But I mean—­I thought you told me, when I asked you to Tempest this week, that you could not get away for an hour!”

“No more I could,” he answers impatiently, yet stammering; “quite unexpected—­did not know when I wrote—­have to be back to-night.”

“Will not you come nearer the fire?” says Mrs. Huntley, in her slow sugared tones, with a well-bred ignoring of our squabble.  “I am sure that you must be perished with cold.”

I recollect myself and comply.  As I sit down I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass.  It is indeed difficult to abstain from the sight of one’s self, however little fond one may be of it, so thickly is the room set round with rose-draped mirrors.  For the moment, O friends, I will own to you that I appear to myself nothing less than brutally ugly.  I know that I am not so in reality, that the disfigurement is only temporary, but none the less does the consciousness deeply, deeply depress me.  My nose is of a lively scarlet, which the warmth of the room is quickly deepening into a lowering purple.  My quick passage through the air has set my hat a little awry, giving me a falsely rakish air, and the wind has loosened my hair—­not into a picturesque and comely disorder, but into mere untidiness.  And, meanwhile, how admirably small and cool her nose looks!  What rest and composure in her whole pose!  What a neat refinement in the disposition of her hair!  What a soft luxury in her dress!  Even my one indisputable advantage of youth seems to me as dirt.  Looking at the completeness of her native grace, I despise youth.  I think it an ill and ugly thing in its green unripeness.  I look round the room.  After the thick outside air, saturated with moisture, I think that the warm atmosphere would, were my spirit less disquieted, lull me quickly to sleep.  How perfumed it is, not with any meretricious artificial scents, but with the clean and honest smell of sweet live flowers.  Yes, though I am aware that Mrs. Huntley has no conservatory, yet hot-house flowers and airy ferns are scattered about the room in far greater profusion than in mine, with all Roger’s imposing range of glass—­scattered about here, there, and everywhere; not as if they were a rare and holiday treat, but a most common, every-day occurrence.  There is not much work to be seen about, and not a book! On the other hand, lounging-chairs, suited to the length or shortness of any back; rococo photograph stands, framing either a great many men, or a few men in a great many attitudes; soothing pictures—­decollete Venuses, Love’s greuze heads—­tied up with rose-ribbon,