But even this satisfaction she denied him, and his only revenge was in making, two or three times afterward, a softly ironical allusion to her slyness.

He told her that she was what is called in French a sournoise.

"Very good," she answered, almost indifferently, "and now please tell me again--I have forgotten it--what you said an 'architrave' was." It was on the occasion of her asking him a question of this kind that he charged her, with a humorous emphasis in which, also, if she had been curious in the matter, she might have detected a spark of restless ardor, with having an insatiable avidity for facts.

"You are always snatching at information," he said; "you will never consent to have any disinterested conversation." She frowned a little, as she always did when he arrested their talk upon something personal.

But this time she assented, and said that she knew she was eager for facts.