attempt.

"I have to be out this afternoon, Grizel," she announced. "A committee
meeting, and a tea. Martin must amuse you. The study is cool in the
afternoon, you might sit there, or have tea in the garden."

Martin's start of surprise held no sign of pleasure. He appeared to be
on the point of an objection, when Grizel's calm acquiescence closed his
lips:

"Yes--I'd like to! We'll try the study first."

"We shan't need a fire to-day... I'm afraid it will be dull for you,
but I can give you a good book."

The words fell mechanically from Martin's lips, but it was Katrine who
flushed with resentment; Grizel smiled on, unperturbed. An hour
afterwards she was sleeping like a child on her bedroom sofa, and
Katrine peeping in to say good-bye, asked herself amazedly if such
composure could exist side by side with any deep feeling. "If I--" the
very suggestion made her heart leap, she looked on the sleeping face
with a stirring of indignation. Martin's life, and her own, shaken to
their foundations, while Grizel slept! For a moment she wrestled with
the temptation to shake the still form into consciousness, then turning
slowly, left the room.

Half an hour later Grizel opened her eyes, and sat up on her couch.
There was no intermediary stage of heaviness and confusion, with the
very opening of her lids she was vividly, composedly awake. She rose,
sauntered to the glass, and surveyed herself with critical detachment.
Her cheeks were flushed with sleep, her hair ruffled into a disorder
undeniably becoming. Her lips parted in a smile of transparent
pleasure, then deliberately she took the brush and smoothed back the
curling ends, which being done she seated herself by the open window,
took up a book, and read composedly until the pink had faded from her
cheeks. It was a pale, orderly, infinitely less attractive Grizel who
tapped at Martin's door, and seated herself by his desk.

"I've come, you see! You didn't want me, but I wanted to come, and I
always do what I want--"

"Grizel! that's not true," protested Martin hastily. He was still
sitting in his swivel writing-chair, turned sideways from the desk so
that he could see her face. A few scattered sheets of MS lay before
him, but the ink was dry on the last words. When Grizel had entered the
room, it had been to find him gazing blankly into space. It was not
obvious against which part of Grizel's declaration his protest was
directed, nor did she tro