“What have you done?” asked Lady Augustus, timidly.  She knew perfectly well that her daughter would tell her nothing, and yet she always asked these questions and was always angry when no information was given to her.  Any young woman would have found it very hard to give the information needed.  “When we were alone he sat for five minutes with his arm round my waist, and then he kissed me.  He didn’t say much, but then I knew perfectly well that he would be on his guard not to commit himself by words.  But I’ve got him to promise that he’ll write to me, and of course I’ll answer in such a way that he must write again.  I know he’ll want to see me, and I think I can go very near doing it.  But he’s an old stager and knows what he’s about:  and of course there’ll be ever so many people to tell him I’m not the sort of girl he ought to marry.  He’ll hear about Colonel de B—­, and Sir C. D—­, and Lord E. F—­, and there are ever so many chances against me.  But I’ve made up my mind to try it.  It’s taking the long odds.  I can hardly expect to win, but if I do pull it off I’m made for ever!” A daughter can hardly say all that to her mother.  Even Arabella Trefoil could not say it to her mother,—­or, at any rate, she would not.  “What a question that is to ask, mamma?” she did say tossing her head.

“Well, my dear, unless you tell me something how can I help you?”

“I don’t know that I want you to help me,—­at any rate not in that way.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, mamma, you are so odd.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Yes, he has.  He said he liked dry champagne and that he never ate supper.”

“If you won’t tell me how things are going you may fight your own battles by yourself.”

“That’s just what I must do.  Nobody else can fight my battles for me.”

“What are you going to do about Mr. Morton?”

“Nothing.”

“I saw him talking to you and looking as black as thunder.”

“He always looks as black as thunder.”

“Is that to be all off?  I insist upon having an answer to that question.”

“I believe you fancy, mamma, that a lot of men can be played like a parcel of chessmen, and that as soon as a knight is knocked on the head you can take him up and put him into the box and have done with him.”

“You haven’t done with Mr. Morton then?”

“Poor Mr. Morton!  I do feel he is badly used because he is so honest.  I sometimes wish that I could afford to be honest too and to tell somebody the downright truth.  I should like to tell him the truth and I almost think I will. `My dear fellow, I did for a time think I couldn’t do better, and I’m not at all sure now that I can.  But then you are so very dull, and I’m not certain that I should care to be Queen of the English society at the Court of the Emperor of Morocco!  But if you’ll wait for another six months, I shall be able to tell you.’  That’s what I should have to say to him.”