n it is mentioned to her. Mauvais sujet, you
understand. But girls are often foolish in that way. Better say nothing
about it."

"I shall say nothing, of course," says Joyce. "Why should I? It is
nothing to me, though I am sorry for her."

Yet as she says this, a doubt arises in her mind as to whether she need
be sorry. Is there a cousin in India? Could that big, jolly, lively
girl, who had come into the conservatory with Beauclerk last night, with
the light of triumph in her eyes, be the victim of an unhappy love
affair? Should she write and ask her if there is a cousin in India? Oh,
no, no! She could not do that! How horrible, how hateful to distrust him
like this! What a detestable mind must be hers. And besides, why dwell
so much upon it. Why not accept him as a pleasing acquaintance. One with
whom to pass a pleasant hour now and then. Why ever again regard him as
a possible lover!

A little shudder runs through her. At this moment it seems to her that
she could never really have so regarded him. And yet only last night----

And now. What is it? Does she still doubt? Will that strange, curious,
tormenting feeling that once she felt for him return no more. Is it gone
forever? Oh! that it might be so!

CHAPTER XXII.

"So over violent, or over civil!"
"A man so various."

"Dull looking day," says Dicky Browne, looking up from his broiled
kidney to glare indignantly through the window at the gray sky.

"It can't be always May," says Beauclerk cheerfully, whose point it is
to take ever a lenient view of things. Even to heaven itself he is kind,
and holds out a helping hand.

"I expect it is we ourselves who are dull," says Lady Baltimore, looking
round the breakfast table, where now many vacant seats make the edges
bare. Yesterday morning Miss Maliphant left. To-day the Clontarfs, and
one or two strange men from the barracks in the next town. Desertion
indeed seems to be the order of the day. "We grow very small," says she.
"How I miss people when they go away."

"Do you mean that as a liberal bribe for the getting rid of the rest of
us," says Dicky, who is now devoting himself to the hot scones. "If so,
let me tell you it isn't good enough. I shall stay here until you choose
to cross the channel. I don't want to be missed."

"That will be next week," says Lady Baltimore. "I do beseech all here
present not to forsake me until then."

"I must deny your prayer," says Lady Swansdown. "These ti