xpress my feelings; I want to do something dramatic, even if it's
absurd, and I can't even speak aloud. Couldn't you have got rid of
Miss West by some means?"

"How could I tell what you wished to say?" Sylvia asked with a shy
smile. "Besides, Ethel wouldn't go. She stuck there in the most
determined fashion!"

"Then we'll have to disregard her. It must be early next year, Sylvia.
I'll see Lansing to-morrow."

He continued in a quietly exultant strain, and Sylvia felt relieved
that her fate was decided. She had some time ago led him to believe
she would marry him; but she had, with vague misgivings and prompted by
half-understood reasons, put off a definite engagement. Now she had
given her pledge, and though she thought of George with faint regret,
she was on the whole conscious of satisfaction. Bland, she believed,
had a good deal to offer her which she could not have enjoyed with his
rival.

Presently a servant brought Ethel something on a salver, and a few
moments later she approached the other two with a telegram in her hand.

"I thought I had better tell you, Sylvia," she explained. "Stephen has
just got a letter from Edgar, written a day or two before he sailed.
He should arrive on Saturday, and George is with him."

Sylvia had not expected this and she was off her guard. She started,
and sat looking at Ethel incredulously, with something like
consternation.

"It's quite true," said Ethel bluntly. "He'll be here in three more
days."

Then Sylvia recovered her composure.

"In that case, I'll have to let Muriel know at once; he'll go straight
there, and she's staying with Lucy. Perhaps I had better telegraph."

She rose and left them; and Bland sought Mrs. Kettering and acquainted
her of his engagement, and begged her to make it known, which she
promised to do. He failed to find Sylvia until she was coming down to
dinner, when she beckoned him.

"Have you told Susan yet?" she asked.

"Yes," Bland beamed; "I told her at once. I should have liked to go
about proclaiming the delightful news!"

Sylvia looked disturbed; Bland could almost have fancied she was angry.
As a matter of fact, troubled thoughts were flying through her mind.
It was obvious that she would shortly be called upon to face a crisis.

"After all," she said, with an air of resignation which struck him as
out of place, "I suppose you had to do so; but you lost no time."

"Not a moment!" he assured her. "I felt I couldn'