She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction.  But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas.  She thought to herself:  “Perhaps he will never speak to me again.  It is all my fault.  I threw him away.  But it was not my fault.  It was his—­it was hers.  I do not know what to think.  He might have let me alone.  I liked him so much.  I have only been a month out of school.  What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?” Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care.

Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow.  Lowering his voice, he said: 

“There’s Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian.”

“Are you sure they are flirting?”

“Of course they are.  Just look at them!”

“If you are sure they are flirting, I don’t think it is right to look at them.  Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it,” she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice.

“Oh, that would never do for a man of my age,” replied Furrey, in good faith.  He was very vain of his youth.

“What I wanted to speak to you about was this,” he continued.  “There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company.  The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year.  Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------”

Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen.  She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation.  Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever.  No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift.  Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him.  Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him.  “For I do love him with my whole heart,” she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily.

Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him.  He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it.