“As for Evie, he wouldn’t let me mention her name.  I didn’t insist, because it was too painful—­I mean, too painful to see how he took it.  He said, in about ten words, that Evie had not been any more engaged than if she had given her word to a man of air, and that there was no reason why she should be spoken of.  We left it there.  I couldn’t deny that, and it was no use saying any more.  The only reply to him must be given by Evie herself.  He is writing to her, and so am I. I wish you would help her to see that she must consider herself quite free, and that she isn’t to undertake what she may not have the strength to carry out.  I realize more and more that I was asking her to do the impossible.”

* * * * *

It was an hour or two after reading this, when Conquest had gone away, that Evie herself—­as dainty as spring, in flowered muslin and a Leghorn hat crowned with a wreath of roses—­came fluttering in.

“I’ve had the queerest letter from Uncle Jarrott,” she began, breathlessly.  “The poor old dear—­well, something must be the matter with him.  I can’t for the life of me imagine what Herbert can have told him, but he doesn’t understand a bit.”

Miriam locked her own letter in her desk, saying as she did so: 

“How does he show it?—­that he doesn’t understand.”

“Why, he simply talks wild—­that’s how he shows it.  He says I am not to consider myself engaged to Herbert—­that I was never engaged to him at all.  I wonder what he calls it, if it isn’t engaged, when I have a ring—­and everything.”

“It is rather mystifying.”  Miriam tried to smile.  “I suppose he means that having given your word to Herbert Strange, you’re not to consider yourself bound to Norrie Ford, unless you want to.”

“Pff!  I don’t care anything about that.  I never liked the name of Herbert—­or Strange, either.  I told you that before.  All the same, I wish Uncle Jarrott would have a little sense.”

“Suppose—­I mean, just suppose, dear—­he felt it his duty to forbid your engagement altogether.  What would you do then?”

“It wouldn’t be very nice of him, I must say.  He was as pleased as Punch over it when I was down there.  If he’s so capricious, I don’t see how he can blame me.”

“Blame you, for what, dear?”

“For staying engaged—­if it’s all right.”

“But if he thought it wasn’t all right?”

“You do, don’t you?”

Evie, who had been prancing about the room, turned sharply on Miriam, who was still at her desk.

“That isn’t the question—­”

“No, but it’s a question.  I presume you don’t mind my asking it?”

“You may ask me anything, darling—­of course.  But this is your uncle Jarrott’s affair, and yours.  It wouldn’t do for me—­”

“Oh, that’s so like you Miriam.  You’d exasperate a saint—­the way you won’t give your opinion when you’ve got one.  I wish I could ask Billy.  He’d know.  But of course I couldn’t, when he thinks I’m still engaged to him.”