way home!"

"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewd
eyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and dig
you and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallest
success."

"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybody
who is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty last
week"--Rose Flaxman gave an involuntary sigh--"I can't get over it."

"Ah, well, it's quite time you were a little nipped by the years," said
Manvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else in
the world? When you grow old there'll be no more youth!"

Mrs. Flaxman's eyes, of a bright greenish-gray, shone gayly into his;
then their owner made a displeased mouth. "You may pay me compliments as
much as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you are
one of the most slow-minded people I have ever met!"

"H'm?" said Mr. Manvers, with mild interrogation.

Rose Flaxman repeated her remark, emphasizing with a little tattoo of her
teaspoon on the Chippendale tea-tray before her. Manvers studied her,
smiling.

"I am entirely ignorant of the grounds of this attack."

"Oh, what hypocrisy!" cried his companion hotly. "I throw out the most
tempting of all possible flies, and you absolutely refuse to rise to it."