"Why, my dear fellow, it's in the air, it's in the papers, it's
everywhere." St. George spoke with the immediate familiarity of a
confrere--a tone that seemed to his neighbour the very rustle of the
laurel. "You're on all men's lips and, what's better, on all women's.
And I've just been reading your book."

"Just? You hadn't read it this afternoon," said Overt.

"How do you know that?"

"I think you should know how I know it," the young man laughed.

"I suppose Miss Fancourt told you."

"No indeed--she led me rather to suppose you had."

"Yes--that's much more what she'd do. Doesn't she shed a rosy glow over
life? But you didn't believe her?" asked St. George.

"No, not when you came to us there."

"Did I pretend? did I pretend badly?" But without waiting for an answer
to this St. George went on: "You ought always to believe such a girl as
that--always, always. Some women are meant to be taken with allowances
and reserves; but you must take _her_ just as she is."

"I like her very much," said Paul Overt.

Something in his tone appeared to excite on his companion's part a
momentary sense of the absurd; perhaps it was the air of deliberation