e start. Mr. Langenau
frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from my seat, and as
quickly sank back in it again.

"Is it that you lack courage?" he said, looking at me keenly.

"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to hide my
flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have scenes."

"But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene?"

"Nobody: only everybody does it all the same."

"Everybody, I suppose, means Mr. Richard Vandermarck, who is frowning at
you this moment from the hall."

"And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your seat."

All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he walked
slowly away. I felt sure he had given me up. The people began to come
out of the parlor, and I felt ready to cry with vexation, when I thought
that they would again be talking about me. It was true, I am afraid,
that I lacked courage.

"You want me to go away?" he said, fixing his eyes intently on me.

"O yes, if you only would," I said naively.

He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and put out
my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, "I only meant--that is--I
should think you would understand without my telling you. A woman cannot
bear to have people talk about her, and know who she likes and who she
doesn't. It kills me to have people talk about me. I'm not used to
society--I don't know what is right--but I don't think--I am afraid--I
ought not to have stayed in here and talked to you away from all the
others. It's that that makes me so uncomfortable. That, and Richard too.
For I know he doesn't like to have me pleased with any one. Do not go
away angry with me. I don't see why you do not understand."

My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.

"I am not going away angry," he said in a low voice, "I will promise not
to speak to you again to-night. Only remember that I have feelings as
well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck."

In a moment more I was alone. Richard did not come near me, nor seem to
notice me, as he passed through the hall. Presently Mr. Eugene Whitney
came in, and I was very glad to see him.

"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for everybody else
was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the evening ended
commonplace enough.

CHAPTER X.

EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.

She wanted years to understand
The grief that he did feel.

_Surrey_.

Love is