troublesome problem. How dull of him to misunderstand her! Her sportiveness had
a double significance. It was the expression of a hope which would not be
subdued, and at the same time a means of disguising the tender interest with
which she regarded him. If she had been blithe before his appearance, how could
she suddenly change her demeanour as soon as he entered? It would have
challenged suspicion and remark. For the same reason she affected to have all
but forgotten him. Of course! how could he have failed to see that? »I thought
of you one day at Bordighera« - was not that the best possible way of making
known to him that he had never been out of her mind?
    Sweet, noble, long-suffering Constance!
    He took a place by her sister, and began to talk of he knew not what, for
all his attention was given to the sound of Constance's voice.
    »Yes,« she was saying to the man of military appearance, »it's very early to
come back to London, but I did get so tired of those foreign places.«
    (In other words, of being far from her Christian - thus he interpreted.)
    »No, we didn't make a single pleasant acquaintance. A shockingly tiresome
lot of people wherever we went.«
    (In comparison with the faithful lover, who waited, waited.)
    »Foreigners are so stupid - don't you think so? Why should they always
expect you to speak their language? - Oh, of course I speak French; but it is
such a disagreeable language - don't you think so?«
    (Compared with the accents of English devotion, of course.)
    »Do you go in for cycling, Mr. Moxey?« inquired Mrs. Palmer's laughing
niece, from a little distance.
    »For cycling?« With a great effort he recovered himself and grasped the
meaning of the words. »No, I - I'm sorry to say I don't. Capital exercise!«
    »Mr. Dwight has just been telling me such an awfully good story about a
friend of his. Do tell it again, Mr. Dwight! It'll make you laugh no end, Mr.
Moxey.«
    The young man appealed to was ready enough to repeat his anecdote, which had
to do with a bold cyclist, who, after dining more than well, rode his machine
down a steep hill and escaped destruction only by miracle. Christian laughed
desperately, and declared that he had never heard anything