‘No, I am not coming up-stairs,’ he answered, as rudely as he dared.

‘What shall I say to Mrs. Fordyce, then?  That you are out of temper?’ she asked, with a sly gaiety which became her well, though it only further exasperated him.

’You can say anything you like, I am very sorry indeed that my opinion is of so little value in your eyes, Gladys, and I ask your pardon if I have presumed too much in offering you a crumb of advice.’

’Oh, don’t be cross because we don’t happen to agree on that particular point,’ she said sunnily.  ’Each individual is surely entitled to his opinion.  I am not cross because you would not agree with me.  Come away up-stairs.’

’No, I’m not coming up to-night.  Make my apologies to them.  Gladys, upon my word, you are perfectly bewitching.  I wish you knew how passionately I love you.  I don’t believe you care a tithe as much for me as I do for you.’

He would have held her again, but she moved away from him, and her face did not brighten as it ought to have done at such a lover-like speech.

‘Will you promise me one thing, Gladys, before I go?’ he pleaded, and he had never been more in earnest in his life.  ’Promise me that if anybody speaks ill of me to you, you will at least give me a chance to clear myself before you condemn me.’

’Oh, I can promise that fast enough, because nobody ever speaks ill of you to me.  It is quite the reverse, I assure you.  I have to listen to your praises all day long,’ she said, with a teasing smile.  ’You ought to show your gratitude for such disinterested kindness by coming up to the ladies.’

‘I’m not going up to-night,’ he reiterated.  ’Give them my kind regards.  Are you really off?’

‘I must, if you won’t come.’

He held open the door for her, and as she passed out, stole another kiss with all a lover’s passion, telling himself it might be the last.  But it did not make her pulses thrill nor her heart beat more quickly, and she saw him depart without a regret.

‘You don’t mean to say that is George away?’ they cried, when the outer hall door closed, and almost immediately Gladys entered the drawing-room alone.

‘Yes, he has gone,’ Gladys answered calmly.

‘What have you been doing to him to set him off like that?’ asked Mina.  ‘Have you had a quarrel?’

‘No,’ replied Gladys innocently; ‘but I think he is rather cross.’

Mrs. Fordyce shook her finger reprovingly at the girl, and said regretfully,—­

’My dear, you are incorrigible.  I could almost regret Henrietta Bonnemain’s marriage, because she is the only woman in this world who could have managed you.’

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHUMS.

Never did mother watch more tenderly over a wayward child than the little seamstress over Liz, and though Liz was quite conscious of the espionage she did not resent it.  She seemed to have no desire to leave the little house, and when Teen, in the course of that afternoon, offered to go to the house in Maryhill for her clothes, she made no demur, nor did she offer to accompany her.