"I am sure that, bad or good--and I know you are not bad--you are the only woman that I care for. May I come and see you to-morrow?"

"Don't talk any more now; you upset me," said Florence.

"May I come and see you to-morrow?"

"Yes."

"Remember, if I come, I shall expect you to tell me everything?"

"Yes."

"You will?"

"I am not certain; I can let you know when you do come."

"Thank you; you have lifted a great weight from my heart."

A moment later Franks appeared with a very learned lady, a Miss Melchister, who asked to be introduced to Florence.

"I have a crow to pluck with you, Miss Aylmer," she said.

"What is that?" asked Florence.

"How dare you give yourself and your sisters away? Do you know that you were very cruel when you wrote that extremely clever paper in the _General Review_?"

"I don't see it," replied Florence. Her answers were lame. Miss Melchister prepared herself for the fray.

"We will discuss the point," she said. "Now, why did you say--"

Trevor lingered near for a minute. He observed that Florence's cheeks had turned pale, and he thought that for such a clever girl she spoke in a rather ignorant way.

"How queer she is!" he said to himself; "but never mind, she will tell me all to-morrow. I shall win her; it will be my delight to guard her, to help her, and if necessary to save her. She is under someone's thumb; but I will find out whose."

His thoughts travelled to Bertha Keys. He remembered that strange time when he met Florence at the railway station at Hamslade. Why had she spent the day there? Why had Bertha sent her a parcel? He felt disturbed, and he wandered into another room. This was the library of the house. Some papers were lying about. Amongst others was the first number of the _General Review_. With a start Trevor took it up. He would look through Florence's article. That clever paper had been largely criticised already; but, strange to say, he had not read it. He sank into a chair and read it slowly over. As he did so, his heart beat at first loud, then with heavy throbs. A look of pain, perplexity, and weariness came into his eyes. One sentence in particular he read not only once, but twice, three times. It was a strange sentence; it contained in it the germ of a very poisonous thought. In these few words was the possibility of a faith being undermined, and a hope being destroyed. It puzzled him. He had the queer feeling that he had read it before. He repeated it to himself until he knew it by heart. Then he put the paper down, and soon afterwards he went to his mother, and told her he was going home.

"I will send a brougham for you; I am not very well," he said.

She looked into his face, and was distressed at the expression she saw in his eyes.

"All right, Maurice dear; I shall be ready in an hour. I just want to meet a certain old friend, and to talk to that pretty girl Miss Aylmer.

I will find out why she does not come to see us."

"Don't worry her. I would rather you didn't," said Trevor.

His mother looked at him again, and her heart sank.

"Is it possible he has proposed for her, and she will not accept him?"

thought the mother; and then she drew her proud little head up, and a feeling of indignation filled her heart. If Florence was going to treat her boy, the very light of her eyes, cruelly, she certainly need expect no mercy from his mother.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

AN ADMIRABLE ARRANGEMENT.

Trevor took his departure, and the gay throng at Mrs. Simpson's laughed and joked and made merry.

Florence had now worked herself into apparent high spirits. She ceased to care whether she talked rubbish or not. She was no longer silent.

Many people asked to be introduced to the rising star, and many people congratulated her. Instead of being modest, and a little stupid and retiring, she now answered back badinage with flippant words of her own.

Her cleverness was such an established fact that her utter nonsense was received as wit, and she soon had throngs of men and women round her laughing at her words and privately taking note of them.

Franks all the while stood as a sort of bodyguard. He listened, and his cool judgment never wavered for a moment.

"I must give her a hint," he said to himself; "she requires training.

That sort of sparkling, effervescent nonsense is in itself in as bad taste and is as poor as the essay she sent me when she played her great practical joke. She is playing a practical joke now on these people, leading them to believe that her chaff is wit."

He came up to her gravely in a pause in the conversation, and asked her if she would like to go in to supper. She laid her hand on his arm, and they threaded their way through the throng. They did not approach the supper-room, however. Franks led her into a small alcove just beside the greenhouse.

"Ah," he said, "I have been watching this place; couples have been in it the whole evening: couples making love, couples making arrangements for future work, couples of all sorts, and now this couple, you and I, find ourselves here. We are as alone as if we were on the top of Mont Blanc."

"What a funny simile!" said Florence. She laughed a little uneasily. "I thought," she continued, "you were going to take me in to supper."

"I will presently; I want first to ask you a question, and to say something to you."

"I am all attention," replied Florence.

"There is no use in beating about the bush," said Franks, after a pause.

"The thing admits of either 'yes' or 'no.' Miss Aylmer, I take a great interest in you."

"Oh, don't, please," said Florence.

"But I do; I believe I can help you. I believe that you and I together can have a most brilliant career. Shall we work in harness? Shall we become husband and wife? Don't start; don't say no at first. Think it over: it would be an admirable arrangement."

"So it would," said Florence. Her answer came out quietly. She looked full into Franks's cold grey eyes, and burst into a mirthless laugh.

"Why do you look at me like that? Are you in earnest when you admit that it would be an admirable arrangement?"

"I am absolutely in earnest. Nothing could be more--more--"

"Let me speak. You are not in earnest. It is your good pleasure to take a great many things in life in a joking spirit. Now, for instance, when you sent me that bald, disgraceful, girlish essay, you played a practical joke which a less patient man would never have forgiven.

To-night, when you talked that rubbish to that crowd of really clever men and women, you played another practical joke, equally unseemly."

"I am not a society person, Mr. Franks. I cannot talk well in company.

You told me to talk, and I did the best I could."

"Your chatter was nearly brainless; the people who listened to you to-night won't put up with that sort of thing much longer. It is impossible with a mind of your order that you should really wish to talk nonsense. But I am not going to scold you. I want to know if you will marry me."