e Ship.'"

Carelessly he rallied her on the subject, carelessly let it pass. And
Olga was left with a newly-awakened doubt at her heart. What was the
reason for the keen interest he took in her friend? Had he really told
her the truth when repudiating the possibility of his falling in love
with her? She fancied he had; and if so, why was he so anxious to inform
himself of her most trivial doings? It was a puzzle to Olga--a puzzle
that for some reason gave her considerable uneasiness. Against her will
and very deep down within her, she was aware of a lurking distrust that
made her afraid of Max Wyndham. She felt as if he were watching to catch
her off her guard, ready at a moment's notice to turn to his own
purposes any rash confidence into which she might be betrayed. And she
told herself with passionate self-reproach that she had already been
guilty of disloyalty to her friend.

During the rest of luncheon she exerted herself to keep the conversation
general, Max seconding her efforts as though unconscious of her desire
to avoid him. In fact, he seemed wholly unaware of any change in her
demeanour, and Olga noted the fact with relief, the while she determined
to exclude him rigidly for the future from anything even remotely
approaching to intimacy. Watch as they might, the shrewd green eyes
should never again catch her off her guard.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ELASTIC BOND

Major Hunt-Goring was quite obviously in his element. To Olga's dismay
he showed no disposition to depart when they rose from the
luncheon-table. Violet suggested a move to the garden, and he fell in
with the proposal with a readiness that plainly showed that he had every
intention of inflicting his company upon them for some time longer.

"It's confoundedly lonely up at The Warren," he remarked pathetically,
as he lounged after her into the sunshine.

Violet laughed over her shoulder, an unlighted cigarette between her
teeth. "You're hardly ever there."

"No. Well, it's a fact. I can't stand it. I'm a sociable sort of chap,
you know. I like society."

"Why don't you marry?" laughed Violet.

"That's a question to which I can find no answer," he declared.
"Why--why, indeed!"

"Hateful man!" murmured Olga, looking after them. "How I wish he would
go!"

"Leave them alone for a spell," advised Max. "Go and mend your stockings
in peace! Miss Campion is quite equal to entertaining him unassisted."

But Olga hesitated to pursue this course