“Who’s just superb?” growled Philip, fancying this turn of the conversation less than the other.

“Well, Mrs. Montague, if you must know.”  And Harry stopped to light a cigar, and then puffed on in silence.  The little quarrel didn’t last over night, for Harry never appeared to cherish any ill-will half a second, and Philip was too sensible to continue a row about nothing; and he had invited Harry to come with him.

The young gentlemen stayed in Fallkill a week, and were every day at the Montagues, and took part in the winter gaieties of the village.  There were parties here and there to which the friends of Ruth and the Montagues were of course invited, and Harry in the generosity of his nature, gave in return a little supper at the hotel, very simple indeed, with dancing in the hall, and some refreshments passed round.  And Philip found the whole thing in the bill when he came to pay it.

Before the week was over Philip thought he had a new light on the character of Ruth.  Her absorption in the small gaieties of the society there surprised him.  He had few opportunities for serious conversation with her.  There was always some butterfly or another flitting about, and when Philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, Ruth laughed merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness—­she declared he was getting to be grim and unsocial.  He talked indeed more with Alice than with Ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in his mind.  It needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly enough what was going forward, and knew her sex well enough to know there was no remedy for it but time.

“Ruth is a dear girl, Philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as ever, but don’t you see she has just discovered that she is fond of society?  Don’t you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice.”

The last evening they were to spend in Fallkill, they were at the Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood.  But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye and in her laugh.  “Confound it,” said Philip to himself, “she’s in a perfect twitter.”

He would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity.  For Ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times, and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and half-confidences.  She even said “Thee” to him once in reproach for a cutting speech he began.  And the sweet little word made his heart beat like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said “thee” to him before.

Was she fascinated with Harry’s careless ‘bon homie’ and gay assurance?  Both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in the most mirthful manner.  Ruth sang for Harry, and that young gentleman turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and then where he thought it would tell.