were. What's the use of it all?"

"She is young, I tell you," repeated Miss Cavendish, "and she's too
sure of you. You've told her you care; now try making her think you
don't care."

Carroll shook his head impatiently.

"I will not stoop to such tricks and pretense, Marion," he cried,
impatiently. "All I have is my love for her; if I have to cheat and to
trap her into caring, the whole thing would be degraded."

Miss Cavendish shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door. "Such
amateurs!" she exclaimed, and banged the door after her.

Carroll never quite knew how he had come to make a confidante of Miss
Cavendish. Helen and he had met her when they first arrived in London,
and as she had acted for a season in the United States, she adopted
the two Americans--and told Helen where to go for boots and hats, and
advised Carroll about placing his plays. Helen soon made other
friends, and deserted the artists with whom her work had first thrown
her. She seemed to prefer the society of the people who bought her
paintings, and who admired and made much of the painter. As she was
very beautiful and at an age when she enjoyed everything in life
keenly and eagerly, to give her pleasure was in itself a distinct
pleasure; and the worldly tired people she met were considering their
own entertainment quite as much as hers when they asked her to their
dinners and dances, or to spend a week with them in the country. In
her way, she was as independent as was Carroll in his, and as she was
not in love, as he was, her life was not narrowed down to but one
ideal. But she was not so young as to consider herself infallible, and
she had one excellent friend on whom she was dependent for advice and
to whose directions she submitted implicitly. This was Lady Gower, the
only person to whom Helen had spoken of Carroll and of his great
feeling for her. Lady Gower, immediately after her marriage, had been
a conspicuous and brilliant figure in that set in London which works
eighteen hours a day to keep itself amused, but after the death of her
husband she had disappeared into the country as completely as though
she had entered a convent, and after several years had then re-entered
the world as a professional philanthropist. Her name was now
associated entirely with Women's Leagues, with committees that
presented petitions to Parliament, and with public meetings, at which
she spoke with marvellous ease and effect. Her old friends said she
had