“Oh!”

She offered him no further greeting, having fallen in with his habit of dispensing, as far as possible, with salutations and ceremonies.  He seemed in no hurry to speak, and so, after a pause, she began, “Sir Charles—­”

“Is gone to town,” he said.  “Erskine is out on his bicycle.  Lady Brandon and Miss Lindsay have gone to the village in the wagonette, and you have come out here to enjoy the summer sun and read rubbish.  I know all your news already.”

“You are very clever, and, as usual, wrong.  Sir Charles has not gone to town.  He has only gone to the railway station for some papers; he will be back for luncheon.  How do you know so much of our affairs?”

“I was on the roof of my house with a field-glass.  I saw you come out and sit down here.  Then Sir Charles passed.  Then Erskine.  Then Lady Brandon, driving with great energy, and presenting a remarkable contrast to the disdainful repose of Gertrude.”

“Gertrude!  I like your cheek.”

“You mean that you dislike my presumption.”

“No, I think cheek a more expressive word than presumption; and I mean that I like it—­that it amuses me.”

“Really!  What are you reading?”

“Rubbish, you said just now.  A novel.”

“That is, a lying story of two people who never existed, and who would have acted very differently if they had existed.”

“Just so.”

“Could you not imagine something just as amusing for yourself?”

“Perhaps so; but it would be too much trouble.  Besides, cooking takes away one’s appetite for eating.  I should not relish stories of my own confection.”

“Which volume are you at?”

“The third.”

“Then the hero and heroine are on the point of being united?”

“I really don’t know.  This is one of your clever novels.  I wish the characters would not talk so much.”

“No matter.  Two of them are in love with one another, are they not?”

“Yes.  It would not be a novel without that.”

“Do you believe, in your secret soul, Agatha—­I take the liberty of using your Christian name because I wish to be very solemn—­do you really believe that any human being was ever unselfish enough to love another in the story-book fashion?”

“Of course.  At least I suppose so.  I have never thought much about it.”

“I doubt it.  My own belief is that no latter-day man has any faith in the thoroughness or permanence of his affection for his mate.  Yet he does not doubt the sincerity of her professions, and he conceals the hollowness of his own from her, partly because he is ashamed of it, and partly out of pity for her.  And she, on the other side, is playing exactly the same comedy.”

“I believe that is what men do, but not women.”

“Indeed!  Pray do you remember pretending to be very much in love with me once when—­”

Agatha reddened and placed her palm on the step as if about to spring up.  But she checked herself and said:  “Stop, Mr. Trefusis.  If you talk about that I shall go away.  I wonder at you!  Have you no taste?’,