Perpetua, having idly plucked a few last pansies, looked at them, and as idly flung them away, goes on her listless way through the gardens.  A whole long month, and not one word from him!  Are his social duties now so numerous that he has forgotten he has a ward?  “Well,” emphatically, and with a vicious little tug at her big white hat, "some people have strange views about duty.”

She has almost reached the summer-house, vine-clad, and temptingly cool in all this heat, when a quick step behind her causes her to turn.

“They told me you were here,” says the professor, coming up with her.  He is so distinctly the professor still, in spite of his new mourning, and the better cut of his clothes, and the general air of having been severely looked after—­that Perpetua feels at home with him at once.

“I have been here for some time,” says she calmly.  “A whole month, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I know.  Were you going into that green little place.  It looks cool.”

It is cool, and particularly empty.  One small seat occupies the back of it, and nothing else at all, except the professor and his ward.

“Perpetua!” says he, turning to her.  His tone is low, impassioned.  “I have come.  I could not come sooner, and I would not write.  How could I put it all on paper?  You remember that last evening?”

“I remember,” says she faintly.

“And all you said?”

“All you said.”

“I said nothing.  I did not dare. Then I was too poor a man, too insignificant to dare to lay bare to you the thoughts, the fears, the hopes that were killing me.”

“Nothing!” echoes she.  “Have you then forgotten?” She raises her head, and casts at him a swift, but burning glance. "Was it nothing?  You came to plead your friend’s cause, I think.  Surely that was something?  I thought it a great deal.  And what was it you said of Mr. Hardinge?  Ah!  I have forgotten that, but I know how you extolled him—­praised him to the skies—­recommended him to me as a desirable suitor.”  She makes an impatient movement, as if to shake something from her.  “Why have you come to-day?” asks she.  “To plead his cause afresh?”

“Not his—­to-day.”

“Whose then?  Another suitor, maybe?  It seems I have more than even I dreamt of.”

“I do not know if you have dreamed of this one,” says Curzon, perplexed by her manner.  Some hope had been in his heart in his journey to her, but now it dies.  There is little love truly in her small, vivid face, her gleaming eyes, her parted, scornful lips.

“I am not given to dreams,” says she, with a petulant shrug_.  “I_ know what I mean always.  And as I tell you, if you have come here to-day to lay before me, for my consideration, the name of another of your friends who wishes to marry me, why I beg you to save me from suitors.  I can make my choice from many, and when I do want to marry, I shall choose for myself.”