If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her without rousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage to refuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make the best of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long.' 'It's most awkward,' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexed mind with difficulty.

'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she is very much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectual standard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as if they had struck her.

Don't quote me at all, of course.

Do it as impersonally as you can--' 'If you give me too many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter with a smile, 'I shall bungle it.

Don't make me nervous.