count.  I thought that perhaps, although he’s so crude and blunt, he might be sensitive and high-minded; you’re always reading about such things; but they say he isn’t, in the least; oh, not the least!  They say he goes with a set of fast jays, and that he’s dreadful; though he has a very good mind, and could do very well if he chose.  That’s what cousin Jim said to-day; he’s just been at our house; and it was so extremely telepathic that I thought I must run round and prevent your having the man on your conscience if you felt you had had too much of him.  You won’t lay him up against us, will you?” She jumped to her feet.

“You dear!” said Bessie, keeping Mary Enderby’s hand, and pressing it between both of hers against her breast as they now stood face to face, “do come up and have some tea!”

“No, no!  Really, I can’t.”

They were both involuntarily silent.  The door had been opened to some one, and there was a brief parley, which ended in a voice they knew to be the doctor’s, saying, “Then I’ll go right up to his room.”  Both the girls broke into laughing adieux, to hide their consciousness that the doctor was going up to see Alan Lynde, who was never sick except in the one way.

Miss Enderby even said:  “I was so glad to see Alan looking so well, last night.”

“Yes, he had such a good time,” said Bessie, and she followed her friend to the door, where she kissed her reassuringly, and thanked her for taking all the trouble she had, bidding her not be the least anxious on her account.

It seemed to her that she should sink upon the stairs in mounting them to the library.  Mary Enderby had told her only what she had known before; it was what her brother had told her; but then it had not been possible for the man to say that he had brought Alan home tipsy, and been alone in the house with her at three o’clock in the morning.  He would not only boast of it to all that vulgar comradehood of his, but it might get into those terrible papers which published the society scandals.  There would be no way but to appeal to his pity, his generosity.  She fancied herself writing to him, but he could show her note, and she must send for him to come and see her, and try to put him on his honor.  Or, that would not do, either.  She must make it happen that they should be thrown together, and then speak to him.  Even that might make him think she was afraid of him; or he might take it wrong, and believe that she cared for him.  He had really been very good to Alan, and she tried to feel safe in the thought of that.  She did feel safe for a moment; but if she had meant nothing but to make him believe her grateful, what must he infer from her talking to him in the light way she did about forgiving him for not coming back to dance with her.  Her manner, her looks, her tone, had given him the right to say that she had been willing to flirt with him there, at that hour, and in those dreadful circumstances.