some sort; I suppose he meant
when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr.
Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me;
and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but the most tragic
change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table!"

"You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling."

"No," said Mary, thoughtfully, "I don't think he is; but he might be
uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he
once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy
just then! I'm afraid I'll keep remembering--"

"I wouldn't." Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there
was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. "I'd keep my mind on
pleasanter things, Mary."

Mary laughed and nodded. "Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough, and
probably, if all were known, too good--even for me!"

And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden
were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.

CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the "ready-made" library, stopped
abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the
pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read
it:

FUGITIVE

I will forget the things that sting:
The lashing look, the barbed word.
I know the very hands that fling
The stones at me had never stirred
To anger but for their own scars.
They've suffered so, that's why they strike.
I'll keep my heart among the stars
Where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like
These wounded ones I must not be,
For, wounded, I might strike in turn!
So, none shall hurt me. Far and free
Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

"Bibbs!" Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she
came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful
than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her
coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed
by the poem. "Pretty young, isn't it?" he said. "There must have been
something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe
the poem did it."

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a
low voice: "I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all,
Bibbs