I gave her my answer--the word I had promised her after hearing from himself what HE had promised.

What she demanded of me yesterday, you'll remember, was the engagement then and there to make him take up this vow." "Well then," Miss Gostrey enquired, "was the purpose of your visit to her only to decline ?" "No; it was to ask, odd as that may seem to you, for another delay." "Ah that's weak!" "Precisely!" She had spoken with impatience, but, so far as that at least, he knew where he was.

"If I AM weak I want to find it out.

If I don't find it out I shall have the comfort, the little glory, of thinking I'm strong." "It's all the comfort, I judge," she returned, "that you WILL have!" "At any rate," he said, "it will have been a month more.

Paris may grow, from day to day, hot and dusty, as you say; but there are other things that are hotter and dustier.