your fault, Basil. Of course, when you played upon my sympathies so
about them, I couldn't help feeling interested in them. We are a
couple of romantic old geese, my dear."

"Not at all, or at least I'm not. I simply used these people
conjecturally to give myself an agreeable pang. I didn't want to
know anything more about them than I imagined, and I certainly
didn't dream of doing anything for them. You'll spoil everything if
you turn them from fiction into fact, and try to manipulate their
destiny. Let them alone; they will work it out for themselves."

"You know I can't let them alone now," she lamented. "I am not one
of those who can give themselves an agreeable pang with the
unhappiness of their fellow-creatures. I'm not satisfied to study
them; I want to relieve them."

She went on to praise herself to my disadvantage, as I notice wives
will with their husbands, and I did not attempt to deny her this
source of consolation. But when she ended by saying, "I believe I
shall send you alone," and explained that she had promised Mrs.
Deering we would come to their hotel for them after tea, and go with
them to hear the music at the United States and the Grand Union, I
protested. I said that I always felt too sneaking when I was
prowling round those hotels listening to their proprietary concerts,
and I was aware of looking so sneaking that I expected every moment
to be ordered off their piazzas. As for convoying a party of three
strangers about alone, I should certainly not do it.

"Not if I've a headache?"