s nothing to me. Why
should my opinion be of any consequence about him?"

"You speak in such a hard voice, Leo. And you look so hard and
unsympathetic whenever Paul is mentioned. Can't you tell me--you might
surely tell _me_----?"

"I wish _you_ would tell _me_ when he departs? One gets tired of people
in the state Paul is in, that's all."

"Are you a little--envious, dear Leo? Such happiness----"

"Yes, that's it. Such happiness--Maud is welcome to it," cried Leo, with
a laugh. "Very welcome, most welcome; but it's all the parade, the
flutter--however, it will soon be over, thank Heaven!"--she subjoined
under her breath.

No more was to be got out of her, and Sue, baffled and repelled, went
her way.

She was conscious, however, of a sense of relief when the very same
afternoon Paul's departure for a season was announced. He had arranged
for this without consulting any one; but Maud was satisfied that
business demanded his presence in London, and that there were also a
few old friends to whom as a bachelor he wished to bid farewell.

It did not appear very clearly where these friends lived, and indeed an
exacting _fiancee_ might have found the brief announcement vague and
unsatisfactory, but Maud's feelings were thus conveyed to her own people
in private: "Paul has so much sense of what is proper and correct, that
it really amounts to an intuition. I daresay he has an idea that when
there is so much for me to attend to, it is better that I should be free
to give myself up to it. Certainly it is a little distracting to have to
remember he is waiting for a walk or ride, when one's head is in a whirl
with other things."

Once she had asked Leo to take the walk instead of her--she did not do
it again. Leo, with blazing eyes, declined point-blank.

"Take your man off your hands? Not I. If you're tired of him----"

"Good gracious, child, what do you mean? What things you do say? I _am_
tired, as it happens--but not of Paul. I have been standing for hours
trying on dresses, and I am not such a walker as you at any time. You
are forever going out. One would have thought you would be glad of a
companion."

"I might be glad of a companion--but not of Paul," retorted Leo,
mimicking. "He is your Paul, not mine, and I--and we----" her lips
trembled and framed no more.

"You might oblige me, I think,"--but Sue touched the speaker's arm, and
Leo vanished.

"What is it?" demanded Maud, irritably. "That child is quite s