CHAPTER XXXIX.-THE PRIVILEGES OF

FRIENDSHIP.

WHEN a man or a woman says, "I am not afraid," it is courteous to believe the assertion, but safe to conclude that it is made rather with the intention of frightening somebody else than of testifying to the speaker's intrepidity; for courage has no more need to proclaim itself than virtue. Beatrice Huntley did not succeed in frightening Brian, even though he understood her warning to mean that if he presumed too far she would cease to be his friend. On the other hand, she dreaded his visit a good deal more than she would have done, had she been in possession of that priceless blessing, a clear conscience. Her nerves, ordinarily as steady as a rock, gave her no little trouble that day, and, as a natural consequence, were a source of trouble to others. Sir Joseph was driven discomfited from her presence at an early hour and trotted off to his club, convinced that he had better leave the girl to be dealt with by a capable member of her own sex; Phipps, who dropped in complacently after luncheon, ready to accept the compliments which he conceived to be his due, departed, after a very short stay, with mortification writ large upon his features and the recollection of some amazingly unjust and ironical criticisms in his mind; even Miss Joy did not escape scot free, but came in for one or two snubs so sharp that she withdrew to her bedroom, where, being a foolish and soft-hearted person, she melted into

tears.

Having thus created a solitude for herself and given orders that no one was to be admitted, unless Mr. Segrave should call "Mr. Segrave, remember, not Mr. Gilbert Segrave"-Beatrice spent the afternoon in wandering restlessly about the room, staring out of the window at the dismal, fog-enveloped park, and trying to fix her attention upon books and newspapers, all of which struck her as being equally devoid of the faintest human interest.

Nervousness and irritability are not likely to be lessened by lack of occupation; yet when Brian, punctual to the appointed hour, was shown into Miss Huntley's luxurious sanctum, he was accosted by a lady who turned towards him a countenance wreathed in smiles and, without rising from the low chair in which she was reclining by the fireside, held out her hand to him, saying lazily: "Hasn't it been a horrid day? I haven't stirred from the house and I was just drop

ping off to sleep. How nice of you to come in and wake me up!"

"You asked me to come," returned Brian curtly.

"Did I? Oh, yes, I remember; and didn't we have something very like the beginning of a quarrel last night? You were rude, or I thought you were, and as we couldn't very well wrangle in public, we agreed to fight it out afterwards. Well, suppose, on second thoughts, we don't fight it out? Suppose we conclude peace, instead? I never can screw myself up to the point of quarrelling in cold blood."

But this system of tactics was of little avail with a man who was very much in earnest, who had thought over what he had to say and who meant to say it. "Why do you try to put me off?" Brian asked. "Is it because you don't want to quarrel with me, and because, as you told me last night, a friend must not strain his privileges farther than they will go? But it seems to me that I should be a poor sort of friend if I held my tongue now, rather than run the risk of displeasing you. I think, when you asked what was the matter with me, you could have answered the question for yourself; I think you must know that, however dull I may be, I am not quite blind. And even if I were, there are plenty of people able and willing to open my eyes

"Stop a moment," she interrupted. "I will allow, if you like, that a friend is sometimes entitled to ask for explanations; but then he must have shown himself worthy of them. For my own part, I should never think it worth while to explain myself to any one who could not trust me. One knows how that sort of thing always ends. You may satisfy him to-day, but he will be dissatisfied again to-morrow; and so it goes on until, some fine morning, you find that your stock of patience is exhausted. I prefer to anticipate a foregone conclusion."

"I don't think I am the kind of friend that you describe," said Brian; "I am not given to being distrustful; but I won't deny that I distrust you now. After that, you can answer me or not, as you think best; but it isn't a great deal that I ask of you. If you will simply tell me that all this is untrue, that shall be enough-though, of course, I had rather that you told me a little more."

"Your moderation does you credit; only you are not quite as lucid as you might be. What is it that I am to admit or deny?"

"I thought, perhaps, you would not force me to put such a hateful question into words.

Is it true or untrue that you are trying to induce Gilbert to break off his engagement?" "And if it were true ?"

Brian hesitated. "I won't believe it!" he exclaimed. "I won't believe until you admit it."

"Depart in peace, then; I haven't made the admission."

But this was scarcely satisfactory. "Won't you just say that it is untrue?" pleaded Brian. "No; why should I? I don't recognise your right to drive me into a corner and hold a pistol to my head."

"What pistol? I have nothing to threaten you with; for I suppose it can't matter much to you whether I am able to go on thinking of you as I have always thought or not; but it matters everything to me. I can't go away without any answer at all and calmly hold my judgment in suspense until I see what will happen.'

"Why not? It seems to me that that would be a very correct and sensible attitude to take up. Why can't you adopt it?"

us.

"Because I love you!" he burst out suddenly. "I have loved you ever since the first day that we met, I think; though I have never had any hope, except for a short time long ago, when I didn't quite understand what a great gulf was fixed between I understand that perfectly well now, and besides, my chance would have been no better if I had been an important personage, instead of an insignificant one. Through all your kindness to me you have never given me the slightest excuse for supposing that you could care for me in that way. I didn't want to tell you this; but I thought

He paused and glanced appealingly at her, but she only made a slight movement of her head, as if inviting him to go on.

"Well, I thought that if you knew the truth you would not wish me to have the misery of doubting you when you could remove all my doubts with a word."

"But are you sure that I can ?" she asked in a low voice.

The room was quite dark now, except for the firelight, and she had drawn her chair back, so that he could not see her face. There was a short interval of silence, after which she resumed: "I won't pretend to be surprised at what you have told me; I have sometimes thought that it might be so, although I was not certain. I am glad you don't accuse me of having led you on, as Stapleford and others have accused me, and I am sorry if you have ever been made unhappy through me. But this is what I

think about it: you are dreamy and imaginative; you would be sure to take any woman that you fell in love with for a paragon, and women are not paragons. At all events, most of them are not, and I belong to the majority. You would have been dreadfully disappointed in me if-if-"

"No, I should not!" interrupted Brian eagerly. "I know you have faults, like everybody else; I could even mention some of them."

She laughed a little. "Could you? But you don't seem to be very tolerant of them and, you see, you are ready to suspect me of all kinds of iniquity. That comes of setting up too high an ideal."

"You call it iniquity, then," he cried; "you allow that it would be iniquity. That is all I wanted you to say. No, Miss Huntley, I haven't set up too high an ideal. I don't know that I can explain myself; but in my own mind it is quite clear that it wasn't really you whom I suspected. If this thing had been true-and there was a great deal to make me think it so-the evidence of my own senses, besides what Sir Joseph told me, and Stapleford-if it had been true you wouldn't have been yourself; you would have been a deceitful, heartless woman, who, for the sake of vanity or ambition, or perhaps of something that she might dignify by the name of love, did not hesitate to betray her friend and disgrace herself. You see," he concluded with a sort of laugh, "it couldn't have been you whom I suspected."

"Ah," she said, "you couldn't love a woman of that description."

"No, I think not; I hope not. Certainly I should be ashamed of myself if I did."

"Come!" said Beatrice, rising and standing over him, with one hand resting upon the mantelpiece, "you have paid me a compliment-for I suppose it is a compliment to a woman to fall in love with her, even though that sentiment may be grounded upon an illusion-and the least that I can do in return is to restore you to a healthy state of mind. Joseph and Stapleford and the evidence of your own senses have not misled you; I have done and am doing my best to break off the engagement between your brother and Kitty Greenwood. More than that, I believe that I have as good as succeeded. More than that, I am utterly unrepentant, and I would do it all over again. I hope that is explicit enough to satisfy you."

There was a long pause. Brian also had risen to his feet, and was standing close to her, but he made no reply.