‘Girls,’ said Mrs. Fordyce, ’Gladys is an enigma, and I give her up; she is so different from any one I have ever met.  Do you really think she cares anything for your cousin?’

‘If she doesn’t, why has she promised to marry him?’ inquired Clara rather quickly.  ‘I think it is rather absurd to ask the question.’

‘Well, I must say I should not particularly like to be in his shoes,’ said Mina; and added, with light sarcasm, ’But it will do dear George good.  Gladys will not fall down and worship him, like the rest of her sex.  How I should like to be invisible at this moment in the library.’

But though Mina had had her wish she would not have seen anything very exciting, the greeting which passed between Gladys and her lover being remarkably cool.  George Fordyce was not quite himself.  Had Gladys been more absorbingly interested in him she could not have failed to observe the furtive look of anxiety with which he advanced to meet her; his demeanour was as different from the ordinary eagerness of a newly-accepted lover as could well be imagined.  Nor did she betray these signs of maidenly shyness and trembling joy which in the circumstances she might have been expected to feel.

‘Good-evening,’ she said gaily.  ’Why did you not come up, instead of sending a message to me, as if you were a person asking a subscription?  I thought it so odd.’

George’s courage rose.  The gay unconcern of her demeanour convinced him that as yet nothing had lowered him in her estimation; with a little careful diplomacy, the dangerous currents might yet be avoided, and all go well.

’Is it so odd that I should wish to have you for a little while to myself?’ he asked, and, putting his arm round her shoulders, took the kiss she could not deny him, though she almost immediately drew herself away.

’Do come up to the drawing-room.  Why should we stay down here?  Don’t you think it rather silly?’

‘I don’t care whether it is silly or not,’ he answered daringly.  ’I don’t mean to go up, or allow you to leave this room, for a good half hour at least.’

Gladys laughed a little, and dropped on one knee on a stool before the quaint fireplace, where the logs burned and crackled in a cheerful blaze.

‘And I have a crow to pick with you, madam,’ said the lover, made bolder by the perfect freedom of the girl’s demeanour.  ’I don’t like second-hand messages.  You might at least have sent me a nice little note by the hand of Aunt Isabel this afternoon.’

‘I didn’t think of it, or I might,’ answered Gladys quite soberly, and the ruddy firelight lay warm and bright on her sweet face, and gave a deeper tinge to the gold of her hair.  As George Fordyce stood as near to her as he dared, being deterred by a certain high dignity in her bearing, he was struck, not only by the perfect beauty of her features, but by the singular firmness mingling with the archness of her look.  Twelve months had done a great deal for Gladys, and there was nothing of the child left, though the new womanliness was a most gracious and lovely thing.