and your fascinating women! to your Hearths,
to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to
all your other institutions! In one word—to
England! Heep-heep-heep! hooray!

Obenreizer's voice had barely chanted the
last note of the English cheer, the speechless
friend had barely drained the last drop out of
his glass, when the festive proceedings were
interrupted by a modest tap at the door. A
woman-servant came in, and approached her
master with a little note in her hand.
Obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and,
after reading it with an expression of genuine
annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and
friend. Vendale's spirits rose as he watched
these proceedings. Had he found an ally in
the annoying little note? Was the long-
looked-for chance actually coming at last?

"I am afraid there is no help for it?" said
Obenreizer, addressing his fellow-countryman.
"I am afraid we must go."

The speechless friend handed back the letter,
shrugged his heavy shoulders, and poured
himself out a last glass of wine. His fat
fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the
bottle. They pressed it with a little amatory
squeeze at parting. His globular eyes looked
dimly, as through an intervening haze, at
Vendale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation
laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence
at a birth. "I think," he said, "I should have
liked a little more wine." His breath failed
him after that effort; he gasped, and walked to
the door.

Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with
an appearance of the deepest distress.

"I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed,"
he began. "A misfortune has happened to one
of my compatriots. He is alone, he is ignorant
of your language—I and my good friend, here,
have no choice but to go and help him. What
can I say in my excuse? How can I describe
my affliction at depriving myself in this way of
the honour of your company?"

He paused, evidently expecting to see
Vendale take up his hat and retire. Discerning
his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to
do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer
dexterously, with Obenreizer's own weapons.

"Pray don't distress yourself," he said.
"I'll wait here with the greatest pleasure till
you come back."

Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away
to her embroidery-frame in a corner by the
window. The film showed itself in Obenreizer's
eyes, and the smile came something sourly to
Obenreizer's lips. To have told Vendale that there
was no reasonable prospect of his coming back
in good time would have been to risk offending
a man whose favourable opinion was of solid
commercial importance to him. Accepting his
defeat with the best possible grace, he declared
himself to be equally honoured and delighted by
Vendale's proposal. "So frank, so friendly, so
English!" He bustled about, apparently looking
for something he wanted, disappeared for a
moment through the folding-doors communicating
with the next room, came back with his
hat and coat, and protesting that he would return
at the earliest possible moment, embraced
Vendale's elbows, and vanished from the scene in
company with the speechless friend.

Vendale turned to the corner by the window,
in which Marguerite had placed herself with
her work. There, as if she had dropped from
the ceiling, or come up through the floor—
there, in the old attitude, with her face to the
stove—sat an Obstacle that had not been
foreseen, in the person of Madame Dor! She half
got up, half looked over her broad shoulder at
Vendale, and plumped down again. Was she
at work? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer's gloves,
as before? No; darning Obenreizer's stockings.

The case was now desperate. Two serious
considerations presented themselves to Vendale.
Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the
stove? The stove wouldn't hold her. Was it
possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living
woman, but as an article of furniture? Could
the mind be brought to contemplate this
respectable matron purely in the light of a chest
of drawers, with a black gauze head-dress
accidently left on the top of it? Yes, the mind
could be brought to do that. With a comparatively
trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it. As
he took his place on the old-fashioned window-
seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery,
a slight movement appeared in the chest of
drawers, but no remark issued from it. Let it
be remembered that solid furniture is not easy
to move, and that it has this advantage in
consequence—there is no fear of upsetting it.

Unusually silent and unusually constrained—
with the bright colour fast fading from her
face, with a feverish energy possessing her
fingers—the pretty Marguerite bent over her
embroidery, and worked as if her life depended
on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale
felt the importance of leading her very gently
to the avowal which he was eager to make to
the other sweeter avowal still, which he was
longing to hear. A woman's love is never to
be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a
system of gradual approach. It ventures by
the roundabout way, and listens to the low
voice. Vendale led her memory back to their
past meetings when they were travelling
together in Switzerland. They revived the
impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy
bygone time. Little by little, Marguerite's
constraint vanished. She smiled, she was
interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle
with her needle, she made false stitches in her
work. Their voices sank lower and lower;
their faces bent nearer and nearer to each
other as they spoke. And Madame Dor?
Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never
looked round; she never said a word; she went
on with Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling each
stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding
that arm aloft from time to time, to catch the
light on her work, there were moments, delicate
and indescribable moments, when Madame Dor
appeared to be sitting upside down, and contemplating
one of her own respectable legs elevated
in the air. As the minutes wore on, these