Harry sat down and took the cup from her hand, as she had bidden the servant to leave the tray upon the table.

“So you saw Count Pateroff,” she said.

“Yes, and his sister.”

“So she told me.  What do you think of them?” To this question Harry made no immediate answer.  “You may speak out.  Though I lived abroad with such as them for twelve months, I have not forgotten the sweet scent of our English hedgerows, nor the wholesomeness of English household manners.  What do you think of them?”

“They are not sweet or wholesome,” said he.

“Oh, Harry, you are so honest!  Your honesty is beautiful.  A spade will ever be a spade with you.”

He thought that she was laughing at him, and colored.

“You pressed me to speak,” he said, “and I did but use your own words.”

“Yes, but you used them with such straightforward violence!  Well, you shall use what words you please, and how you please, because a word of truth is so pleasant after living in a world of lies.  I know you will not lie to me, Harry.  You never did.”

He felt that now was the moment in which he should tell her of his engagement, but he let the moment pass without using it.  And, indeed, it would have been hard for him to tell.  In telling such a story he would have been cautioning her that it was useless for her to love him—­and this he could not bring himself to do.  And he was not sure even now that she had not learned the fact from her sister.  “I hope not,” he said.  In all that he was saying he knew that his words were tame and impotent in comparison with hers, which seemed to him to mean so much.  But then his position was so unfortunate!  Had it not been for Florence Burton he would have been long since at her feet; for, to give Harry Clavering his due, he could be quick enough at swearing to a passion.  He was one of those men to whom love-making comes so readily that it is a pity that they should ever marry.  He was ever making love to women, usually meaning no harm.  He made love to Cecilia Burton over her children’s beds, and that discreet matron liked it.  But it was a love-making without danger.  It simply signified on his part the pleasure he had in being on good terms with a pretty woman.  He would have liked to have made love in the same way to Lady Ongar; but that was impossible, and in all love-making with Lady Ongar there must be danger.  There was a pause after the expression of his last hopes, during which he finished his tea, and then looked at his boots.

“You do not ask me what I have been doing at my country-house.”

“And what have you been doing there?”

“Hating it.”

“That is wrong.”

“Everything is wrong that I do; everything must be wrong.  That is the nature of the curse upon me.”

“You think too much of all that now.”