“Well, yes,” say I, reluctantly making the admission.  “I do not say that I did not!  Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that is a very different thing from being sick of him!”

“Well, we will not say sick” returns Algy, with the air of one who is making a handsome concession, “it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, but it would be useless to try and convince me that any human affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!”

“But it was not an absolute duet,” cry I, raising my voice a little, and speaking with some excitement; “you are talking about what you do not know! you are quite wrong.”

“Well, it is not the first time in my life that I have been that,” he says, philosophically; “but come—­who did you the Christian office of interrupting it? tell us.”

“I told you in my letters,” say I, rather petulantly.  “I certainly mentioned—­yes, I know I did—­we happened at Dresden to fall in with a friend of the general’s—­at least, a person he knew.”

“A person he knew?  What kind of a person?  Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“Old or young?”

“Young.”

“Ugly or pretty?”

“Pretty,” answer I, laughing.  “Ah! what a rage he would be in, if he could hear such an epithet applied to him!”

“A young, well-looking, man-friend!” says Algy, slowly recapitulating all my admissions as he lies gently puffing on the rug beside me.  “Well?”

“Well!” echo I, rather snappishly.  “Nothing! only that I wanted to show you that it was not quite such a duet as you imagined!  Of course —­Dresden is not a big place—­of course we met very often, and went here and there together.”

“And where was Sir Roger meanwhile?”

“Sir Roger was there, too, of course,” reply I, still a little crossly, “except once or twice—­certainly not more than twice—­he said he did not feel inclined to come, and so we went without him.”

“You left him at home, in fact!” says Algy, with a rather malicious smile, “out of harm’s way, while you and the young friend marauded about the town together; it must have been very lively for him, poor man!  Oh, fie!  Nancy, fie!”

“We did not do any thing of the kind,” cry I, now thoroughly vexed and uncomfortable.  “I wish you would not misunderstand things on purpose! there is not any fun in it! Both times I wanted him to come!  I asked him particularly!”

“And, if I may make so bold as to inquire,” asks Bobby, striking in, “how did the young friend call himself?  What was his name?”

“Musgrave,” reply I, shortly.  “Frank Musgrave!” for the stream of my conversation seems dried.

“Was he nice?  Should we like him?” ask Tou Tou, who has recovered her equanimity, dried her tears, and forgotten the bishop.