"Neither there, nor anywhere." He gets up suddenly, and going to her, bends over the chair on which she is sitting.
"We were talking of what ?" asks she, with admirable courage, "of names, was it not?
An endless subject.

_My_ name now?
An absurd one surely.
Perpetua! I don't like Perpetua, do you ?" She is evidently talking at random.
"I do indeed!" says Hardinge, promptly and fervently.

His tone accentuates his meaning.
"Oh, but so harsh, so unusual!" "Unusual! That in itself constitutes a charm." "I was going to add, however--disagreeable." "Not that--never that," Says Hardinge.
"You mean to say you really _like_ Perpetua ?" her large soft eyes opening with amazement.
"It is a poor word," says he, his tone now very low.

"If I dared say that I _adored_ 'Perpetua,' I should be----" "Oh, you laugh at me," interrupts she with a little impatient gesture, "you _know_ how crude, how strange, how----" "I don't indeed.

Why should you malign yourself like that?
You--_you_--who are----" He stops short, driven to silence by a look in the girl's eyes.
"What have _I_ to do with it?
I did not christen myself," says she.
There is perhaps a suspicion of hauteur in her tone.