Cyril Waring looked up with a half-guilty smile as embarrassed as
her own.

"Oh yes," he said quietly. "I knew that quite well. I'm down here
often. It's half-way between Chetwood and Warnworth I'm painting.
But I thought--well, if you'll excuse me saying it, I thought
I was so comfortable and so happy where I was, that I might just
as well go on a station or two more, and then pay the difference,
and take the next train back to Warnworth. You see," he added,
after a pause, with a still more apologetic and penitent air, "I saw
you were so interested in--well, in snakes, you know, and pictures."

Gentle as he was, and courteous, and perfectly frank with her,
Elma, nevertheless, felt really half inclined to be angry at this
queer avowal. That is to say, at least, she knew it was her bounden
duty, as an English lady, to seem so; and she seemed so accordingly
with most Britannic severity. She drew herself up in a very stiff
style, and stared fixedly at him, while she began slowly and steadily
to uncoil Sardanapalus from her imprisoned arm with profound dignity.

"I'm sorry I should have brought you so far out of your way," she
said, in a studied cold voice--though that was quite untrue, for,
as a matter of fact, she had enjoyed their talk together immensely.
"And besides, you've been wasting your valuable time when you ought
to have been painting. You'll hardly get any work done now at all
this morning. I must ask you to get out at the very next station."

The young man bowed with a crestfallen air. "No time could possibly
be wasted," he began, with native politeness, "that was spent--" Then