day.

"A _long_ yachting trip?" she asked, controlling her voice.

"I don't quite know yet. Some weeks, perhaps. The only difficulty is
about you."

Kate did not answer for a moment. _Was_ this an excuse to get rid of her,
and if so, why? Could it be that Roger Broom had been warning Virginia
that her half-brother was in danger of making a fool of himself about a
woman many years his senior? A short time ago she might have believed
that this was the explanation, for Roger Broom knew a good deal about
Lady Gardiner. He was aware that her dead husband was but a city man,
knighted when he was sheriff; that she had been governess to the gruff
old widower's one daughter; that she had married him for his money, and
spent it freely until what remained was lost in a great financial panic;
that since then she had lived as she could, trading upon her own
aristocratic connections to chaperon girls, chiefly Americans, who wished
to see "English society from the inside." Roger knew her real age, or
something near it; he knew that she had been in debt when she had got
this chance with Virginia, to whom she had been recommended by an
American duchess; and as there was nothing against her character, he had
been too good-natured--as she would have expressed it--to "put a spoke in
her wheel." However, if he suspected designs upon George, he might not
have continued to be as discreet; but during these last three days of
mysterious confabs, George Trent had appeared as much changed toward her
as his half-sister had, so that Roger need have had no new fears for him.
George had never ceased to be courteous, but there was a subtle
difference in his manner, in his way of looking at her. He appeared
preoccupied; he no longer sought her out. And this alteration had only
come about since the day when they had visited the Chateau de la Roche.

Perhaps, then, it was George who was tired of her. He had never been the
same since he had seen that girl in black, with the tragic eyes and the
dead-white face, with no more life in it than a marble statue. Maybe he
was planning to attach that girl to the party in some way, and would find
the society of the woman with whom he had flirted a constraint.

At this thought Kate Gardiner felt her blood grow hot. It was unbearable
that she should be sent out of George Trent's life to make room for a
younger woman. She would not have it--she would not! If it killed her to
go on this hateful yachting trip she w