"How could you give him that chance! How COULD you! What did you say ?" "I said nothing," she replied mysteriously.

"I did something much more to the point,--I cried!" "CRIED ?" "Yes, cried; not rivers and freshets of woe, but small brooks and streamlets of helpless mortification." "What did he do then ?" "Why do you say 'do' ?" "Oh, I mean 'say,' of course.

Don't trifle; go on.

What did he say then ?" "There are some things too dreadful to describe," she answered, and wrapping her Italian blanket majestically about her she retired to her own apartment, shooting one enigmatical glance at me as she closed the door.
That glance puzzled me for some time after she left the room.

It was as expressive and interesting a beam as ever darted from a woman's eye.
The combination of elements involved in it, if an abstract thing may be conceived as existing in component parts, was something like this:-- One-half, mystery.