‘You make me,’ said Aminta.  ’I must redden if you keep looking at me so closely.’

’Now frown one little bit, please.  I love to see you.  I love to see a secret disclose itself ingenuously.’

‘But what secret, my dear?’ cried Aminta’s defence of her innocence; and she gave a short frown.

’Have no fear.  Mr. Secretary is not the man to be Morsfielding.  And he can enjoy his repast; a very good sign.  But is he remaining long?’

‘He is going soon, I hear.’

’He’s a good boy.  I could have taken to him myself, and not dreaded a worrying.  There ’s this difference between you and me, though, my Aminta; one of us has the fireplace prepared for what’s-his-name—­“passion.”  Kiss me.  How could you fancy you were going to have a woman for your friend and keep hidden from her any one of the secrets that blush! and with Paggy to aid!  I am sure it means very little.  Admiration for good handwriting is—­’ a smile broke the sentence.

‘You’re astray, Isabella.’

‘Not I, dear, I’m too fond of you.’

‘You read what is not.’

‘What is not yet written, you mean.’

‘What never could be written.’

’I read what is in the blood, and comes out to me when I look.  That lord of yours should take to study you as I have done ever since I fell in love with you.  He ‘s not counselling himself well in keeping away.’

‘Now you speak wisely,’ said Aminta.

’Not a particle more wisely.  And the reason is close at hand—­see.  You are young, you attract—­how could it be otherwise?—­and you have “passion” sleeping, and likely to wake with a spring whether roused or not.  In my observation good-man t’other fellow—­the poet’s friend—­is never long absent when the time is ripe—­at least, not in places where we gather together.  Well, one is a buckler against the other:  I don’t say with lovely Amy May,—­with an honourable woman.  But Aminta can smell powder and grow more mettlesome.  Who can look at you and be blind to passion sleeping!  The sight of you makes me dream of it—­me, a woman, cool as a wine-cellar or a well.  So there’s to help you to know yourself and be on your guard.  I know I’m not deceived, because I’ve fallen in love with you, and no love can be without jealousy, so I have the needle in my breast, that points at any one who holds a bit of you.  Kind of sympathetic needle to the magnet behind anything.  You’ll know it, if you don’t now.  I should have felt the thing without the aid of Paggy.  So, then, imagine all my nonsense unsaid, and squeeze a drop or two of ’sirop de bon conseil’ out of it, as if it were your own wise meditations.’  The rest of Mrs. Lawrence’s discourse was a swallow’s wing skimming the city stream.  She departed, and Aminta was left to beat at her heart and ask whether it had a secret.

But if there was one, the secret was out, and must have another name.  It had been a secret for her until she heard her friend speak those pin-points that pricked her heart, and sent the blood coursing over her face, like a betrayal, so like as to resemble a burning confession.