"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'"

"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name,
Alixe!"

After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am
going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?"

He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful
bit of news to him:

"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?"

"I do not--dislike you."

"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?"

"Y-es."

"Contempt?"

"No."

"What is it?"

"It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled."

"To my--folly?"