Mrs. Trevor Harrison stopped rocking her chair, and looked at the girl thoughtfully.

“Well,” she said, “what you tell me sounds very strange.  Still, I don’t see what motive he could have had for doing all this.”

“Why should you suspect a motive?” Virginia demanded.

“Because he is Phineas Duge,” Mrs. Harrison said drily.  “But there, my dear child, I mustn’t say a word against your uncle.  He has been nice enough to me because I have promised to look after you.  Does he want me to marry you, I wonder?  I don’t think that it would be very difficult.”

Virginia blushed, and moved uneasily in her chair.

“Please don’t,” she begged.  “I do not wish to think of anything of the sort.  My uncle says that presently I am to help him.”

“To help him,” Mrs. Trevor Harrison repeated thoughtfully.

Virginia nodded.

“Yes!  I don’t exactly know how, but that is what he said.”

Her chaperon looked thoughtful for a moment.  So there was a motive somewhere, then!  But, after all, what concern was it of hers?  She was an old friend of the Duge family, and Phineas Duge had made it very well worth her while to look after his niece.

They were interrupted by some callers.  It was an informal “At Home” which Mrs. Harrison was giving in honour of her young charge.  Soon the rooms were crowded with people, and Virginia, slim, elegant, perfectly gowned, looking like a picture, with her pale oval face and wonderful dark grey eyes, was the centre of a good deal of attention.  And in the midst of it all a girl, whom as yet she had not noticed, touched her on the arm and drew her a little away.  She started with surprise when she saw that it was Stella.

“Come, my dear cousin,” Stella said, “I want to have a little talk with you.  Won’t you sit down with me here?  I am sure you have been doing your duty admirably.”

Virginia was a little shy.  She was not quite sure whether she ought to talk to her cousin.  Nevertheless, she obeyed the stronger personality.

“Of course I know,” Stella said, spreading herself out on a sofa, and smiling in amusement at the other’s slight embarrassment, “that I am in disgrace with my beloved parent, and that you are half afraid to talk to me.  Still, you must remember that you owe me a little consideration, for you have taken my place, and turned me out into the cold world.”

“You must not talk like that, please,” Virginia said quietly.  “You know very well that I have done nothing of the sort.  When my uncle sent for me, I had no idea that you were not still living with him.”

“I lived with him for three years,” Stella said, “after I had come back from Europe.  I call that a very wonderful record.  I give you about three months.”

“I don’t know why you should say this,” Virginia answered.  “I find my uncle very easy to get on with so long as he is obeyed.”