, at once, saw the meaning that Lowther
might misread into her words.

"Can I look you up when next I'm in town?" he asked eagerly.

"Oh yes, you can look me up," she replied diffidently.

"We ought to go out to supper one evening."

"I should be delighted."

"You would! Really you would?"

"If you brought your sister. I must find a seat."

"No hurry. It always waits some time here; milk-cans and all that. By
Jove! I wish I were going up alone with you. And that's what I meant. I
thought we'd go out to supper at the Savoy or Kettner's by ourselves,
eh?"

She looked at him coldly, critically.

"Or say the Carlton," he added, thinking that such munificence might
dazzle her.

"I'll get in here," she said.

Seeing Mavis select a third-class carriage, his appreciation of her
immediately lessened.

"Tell you what," he said to her through the window, "we won't bother
about going out to grub; we'll have a day in the country; we can enjoy
ourselves just as much there. Eh, dear? Oh, I beg your pardon, but
you're so pretty, you know, and all that."

Mavis noticed the way in which he leered at her while he said these
words. She bit her lip in order to restrain the words that were on her
tongue; it was of no avail.

"I'll tell you something," she cried.

"Yes--yes; quickly, the train is just off."

"If my father had been alive, and we'd been living here, you'd not have
dared to speak to me like that; in fact, you wouldn't have had the
chance."

It was a crestfallen, tired, and heartsick Mavis who opened the door of
Brandenburg College with her latch-key in the evening. The only thing
that sustained her was the memory of the white look of anger which
appeared in Lowther Devitt's face when she had unmistakably resented
his insult.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAVIS LEAVES HER NEST

Mavis did not tell the whole truth to the two old ladies; they gathered
from her subdued manner that she had not been successful in her quest.

The girl was too weary to give explanations, to talk, even to think;
the contemplation of the wreck of the castles that she had been
building in the air had tired her: she went to bed, resolving to put
off further thought for the future until the morrow.

Several times in the night, she awoke with a start, when she was
oppressed with a great fear of the days to come; but each time she put
this concern from her, as if conscious that she required all the rest
she could get, in order to make up