re left alone, I want to apologize to
you. I had no right to plague you, but it all comes of the way I love
you. A fellow gets jealous at the least little thing, you know."

"Bore me with no more such trash," I said, turning away in disgust.

"But, Miss Sybylla, what am I to do with it?"

"Do with what?"

"My love."

"Love!" I retorted scornfully. "There is no such thing."

"But there is, and I have found it."

"Well, you stick to it--that's my advice to you. It will be a treasure.
If you send it to my father he will get it bottled up and put it in the
Goulburn museum. He has sent several things there already."

"Don't make such a game of a poor devil. You know I can't do that."

"Bag it up, then; put a big stone to make it sink, and pitch it in the
river."

"You'll rue this," he said savagely.

"I may or may not," I sang over my shoulder as I departed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

One Grand Passion

I had not the opportunity of any more private interviews with Everard
Grey till one morning near his departure, when we happened to be alone on
the veranda.

"Well, Miss Sybylla," he began, "when I arrived I thought you and I would
have been great friends; but we have not progressed at all. How do you
account for that?"

As he spoke he laid his slender shapely hand kindly upon my head. He was
very handsome and winning, and moved in literary, musical, and artistic
society--a man from my world, a world away.

Oh, what pleasure I might have derived from companionship with him! I bit
my lip to keep back the tears. Why did not social arrangements allow a
man and a maid to be chums--chums as two men or two maids may be to each
other, enjoying each other without thought beyond pure platonic
friendship? But no; it could not be. I understood the conceit of men.
Should I be very affable, I feared Everard Grey would imagine he had made
a conquest of me. On the other hand, were I glum he would think the same,
and that I was trying to hide my feelings behind a mask of brusquerie. I
therefore steered in a bee-line between the two manners, and remarked
with the greatest of indifference:

"I was not aware that you expected us to be such cronies--in fact, I have
never given the matter a thought."

He turned away in a piqued style. Such a beau of beaux, no doubt he was
annoyed that an insignificant little country bumpkin should not be
flattered by his patronage, or probably he thought me rude or
ill-humoured.

Two