“Well, I am glad you have come here.  You remember, our friendship began in the country?  Yes?  My husband had to go and get sick, and I got really frightened about him, and so we determined to come here, where we should be perfectly quiet.  We got here last Saturday.  There is not a man here.”

“Isn’t there?” asked Keith, wishing there were not a woman either.  “How long are you going to stay?” he asked absently.

“Oh, perhaps a month.  How long shall you be here?”

“Not very long,” said Keith.

“I tell you who is here; that little governess of Mrs. Wentworth’s she was so disagreeable to last winter.  She has been very ill.  I think it was the way she was treated in New York.  She was in love with Ferdy Wickersham, you know?  She lives here, in a lovely old place just outside of town, with her old aunt or cousin.  I had no idea she had such a nice old home.  We saw her yesterday.  We met her on the street.”

“I remember her; I shall go and see her,” said Keith, recalling Mrs. Nailor’s speech at Mrs. Wickersham’s dinner, and Lois’s revenge.

“I tell you what we will do.  She invited us to call, and we will go together,” said Mrs. Nailor.

Keith paused a moment in reflection, and then said casually: 

“When are you going?”

“Oh, this afternoon.”

“Very well; I will go.”

Mrs. Nailor drove Keith out to The Lawns that afternoon.

In a little while Miss Huntington came in.  Keith observed that she was dressed as she had been that evening at dinner, in white, but he did not dream that it was the result of thought.  He did not know with what care every touch had been made to reproduce just what he had praised, or with what sparkling eyes she had surveyed the slim, dainty figure in the old cheval-glass.  She greeted Mrs. Nailor civilly and Keith warmly.

“I am very glad to see you.  What in the world brought you here to this out-of-the-way place?” she said, turning to the latter and giving him her cool, soft hand, and looking up at him with unfeigned pleasure, a softer and deeper glow coming into her cheek as she gazed into his eyes.

“A sudden fit of insanity,” said Keith, taking in the sweet, girlish figure in his glance.  “I wanted to see some roses that I knew bloomed in an old garden about here.”

“He, perhaps, thought that, as Brookford is growing so fashionable now, he might find a mutual friend of ours here?” Mrs. Nailor said.

“As whom, for instance?” queried Keith, unwilling to commit himself.

“You know, Alice Lancaster has been talking of coming here?  Now, don’t pretend that you don’t know.  Whom does every one say you are—­all in pursuit of?”

“I am sure I do not know,” said Keith, calmly.  “I suppose that you are referring to Mrs. Lancaster, but I happened to know that she was not here.  No; I came to see Miss Huntington.”  His face wore an expression of amusement.