"With admiration, I was going to say, but you wouldn't let me finish my sentence. Oh, yes, he was quite a success. One old gentleman wanted to know if he would accept the part of art critic on his paper. It was very exciting." She leans back in her chair, the troubled look on her face growing intensified. She seems glad to be silent, and with downcast eyes plays with the gloves lying in her lap.

"Something has happened, Joyce," says her sister, going over to her.

"Something is happening always," returned Joyce, with a rather impatient smile.

"Yes, but to you just now."

"You are sure to make me tell you sooner or later," says Miss Kavanagh, "and even if I didn't, Tommy would. I met Mr. Dysart at that gallery to-day."

"Felix?" says Mrs. Monkton, feeling herself an abominable hypocrite; yet afraid to confess the truth. Something in the girl's whole att.i.tude forbids a confession, at this moment at all events.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Well?"

"He was glad to see you, darling?" very tenderly.

"Was he? I don't know. He looked very ill. He said he had had a bad cough. He is coming to see you."

"You were kind to him, Joyce?"

"I didn't personally insult him, if you mean that."

"Oh, no, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. He was ill, unhappy; you did not make him more unhappy?"

"It is always for him!" cries the girl, with jealous anger. "Is there never to be a thought for me? Am I nothing to you? Am I never unhappy?

Why don't you ask if he was kind to me?"

"Was he ever unkind?"

"Well, you can forget! He said dreadful things to me--dreadful. I am not likely to forget them if you are. After all, they did not hurt you."

"Joyce!"

"Yes, I know--I know everything you would say. I am ungrateful, abominable, but----He was unkind to me! He said what no girl would ever forgive, and yet you have not one angry word for him."

"Never mind all that," says Mrs. Monkton, soothingly. "Tell me what you did to-day--what you said."

"As little as possible," defiantly. "I tell you I don't want ever to see him again, or hear of him; I think I hate him. And he looked dying." She stops here, as if finding a difficulty about saying another word. She coughs nervously; then, recovering herself, and as if determined to a.s.sert herself anew and show how real is the coldness that she has declared--"Yes, dying, I think," she says, stubbornly.

"Oh, I don't think he looked as bad as that!" says Barbara, hastily, unthinkingly filled with grief, not only at this summary dismissal of poor Felix from our earthly sphere, but for her sister's unhappiness, which is as plain to her as though no little comedy had been performed for the concealment of it.

"You don't!" repeats Joyce, lifting her head and directing a piercing glance at her. "You! What do you know about him?"

"Why--you just said----" stammers Mrs. Monkton, and then breaks down ignominiously.

"You knew he was in town," says Joyce, advancing to her, and looking down on her with clasped-hands and a pale face. "Barbara, speak. You knew he was here, and never told me; you," with a sudden, fresh burst of inspiration, "sent him to that place to-day to meet me."

"Oh, no, dearest. No, indeed. He himself can tell you. It was only that he----"

"Asked where I was going to, at such and such an hour, and you told him." She is still standing over poor Mrs. Monkton in an att.i.tude that might almost be termed menacing.

"I didn't. I a.s.sure you, Joyce, you are taking it all quite wrongly. It was only----"

"Oh! only--only," says the girl, contemptuously. "Do you think I can't read between the lines? I am sure you believe you are sticking to the honest truth, Barbara, but still----Well," bitterly, "I don't think he profited much by the information you gave him. Your deception has given him small satisfaction."

"I don't think you should speak to me like that," says Mrs. Monkton, in a voice that trembles perceptibly.

"I don't care what I say," cries Joyce, with a sudden burst of pa.s.sion.

"You betray me; he betrays me; all the world seem arrayed against me.

And what have I done to anybody?" She throws out her hands protestingly.

"Joyce, darling, if you would only listen."

"Listen! I am always listening, it seems to me. To him, to you, to every one. I am tired of being silent; I must speak now. I trusted you, Barbara, and you have been bad to me. Do you want to force him to make love to me, that you tell him on the very first opportunity where to find me, and in a place where I am without you, or any one to----"

"Will you try to understand?" says Mrs. Monkton, with a light stamp of her foot, her patience going as her grief increases. "He cross-examined me as to where you were, and would be, and I--I told him. I wasn't going to make a mystery of it, or you, was I? I told him that you were going to the Dore Gallery to-day with Tommy. How could I know he would go there to meet you? He never said he was going. You are unjust, Joyce, both to him and to me."

"Do you mean to tell me that for all that you didn't know he would be at that place to-day?" turning flashing eyes upon her sister.

"How could I know? Unless a person says a thing right out, how is one to be sure what he is going to do?"

"Oh! that is unlike you. It is unworthy of you," says Joyce, turning from her scornfully. "You did know. And it is not," turning back again and confronting the now thoroughly frightened Barbara with a glance full of pathos, "it is not that--your insincerity that hurt me so much, it is----"

"I didn't mean to be insincere; you are very cruel--you do not measure your words."

"You will tell me next that you meant it all for the best," with a bitter smile. "That is the usual formula, isn't it? Well, never mind; perhaps you did. What I object to is you didn't tell me. That I was kept designedly in the dark both by him and you. Am I," with sudden fire, "a child or a fool, that you should seek to guide me so blindly? Well,"

drawing a long breath, "I won't keep you in the dark. When I left the gallery, and your protege, I met--Mr. Beauclerk!"

Mrs. Monkton, stunned by this intelligence, remains silent for a full minute. It is death to her hopes. If she has met that man again, it is impossible to know how things have gone. His fatal influence--her unfortunate infatuation for him--all will be ruinous to poor Felix's hopes.

"You spoke to him?" asks she at last, in an emotionless tone.

"Yes."

"Was Felix with you?"

"When?"

"When you met that odious man?"

"Mr. Beauclerk? No; I dismissed Mr. Dysart as soon as ever I could."

"No doubt. And Mr. Beauclerk, did you dismiss him as promptly."

"Certainly not. There was no occasion."