“What?”

Lucy looked away from Rose.  She seemed to shrink within herself.  The color faded from her face.  “I heard something,” she said, faintly, “but I said I wouldn’t believe it until I had asked you.”

“What is it?”

“I heard that you were engaged to marry Mr. Allen.”

Rose flushed and moved away a little from Lucy.  “You can contradict the rumor whenever you hear it again,” said she.

“Then it isn’t true?”

“No, it isn’t.”

Lucy nestled against Rose, in spite of a sudden coldness which had come over the other girl.  “You are so dear,” said she.

Rose looked straight ahead, and sat stiffly.

“I am thoroughly angry at such rumors, merely because a girl happens to be living in the same house with a marriageable man,” said she.

“Yes, that is so,” said Lucy.  She remained quiet for a few moments, leaning against Rose, her blue-clad shoulder pressing lovingly the black-clad one.  Then she moved away a little, and reared her pretty back with a curious, snakelike motion.  Rose watched her.  Lucy’s eyes fastened themselves upon her, and something strange happened.  Either Lucy Ayres was a born actress, or she had become actually so imbued, through abnormal emotion and love, with the very spirit of the man that she was capable of projecting his own emotions and feelings into her own soul and thence upon her face.  At all events, she looked at Rose, and slowly Rose became bewildered.  It seemed to her that Horace Allen was looking at her through the eyes of this girl, with a look which she had often seen since their very first meeting.  She felt herself glowing from head to foot.  She was conscious of a deep crimson stealing all over her face and neck.  Her eyes fell before the other girl’s.  Then suddenly it was all over.  Lucy rose with a little laugh.  “You sweet, funny creature,” she said.  “I can make you blush, looking at you, as if I were a man.  Well, maybe I love you as well as one.”  Lucy took the bowl of candy from the bench and extended it to Rose.  “Do have some candy,” said she.

“Thank you,” said Rose.  She looked bewildered, and felt so.  She took a sugared almond and began nibbling at it.  “Aren’t you going to eat any candy yourself?” said she.

“I have eaten so much already that it has made my head ache,” replied Lucy.  “Is it good?”

“Simply delicious.  You must teach me how you make such candy.”

“Lucy will be glad to teach you any day,” said Mrs. Ayres’s voice.  She had come swiftly upon them, and entered the arbor with a religious newspaper in her hand.  Lucy no longer seemed annoyed by her mother’s following her.  She only set the candy behind her with a quick movement which puzzled Rose.

“Aren’t you going to offer your mother some?” she asked, laughing.

“Mother can’t eat candy.  Dr. Wallace has forbidden it,” Lucy said, quickly.

“Yes, that is quite true,” assented Mrs. Ayres.  She began reading her paper.  Lucy offered the bowl again to Rose, who took a bonbon.  She was just swallowing it when Horace Allen appeared.  He made a motion which did not escape Mrs. Ayres.  She rose and confronted him with perfect calmness and dignity.  “Good-afternoon, Mr. Allen,” she said.