be disloyal. Not to you, anyhow," she added on
second thoughts. "I shouldn't mind Ila so much, nor Caro."

"You don't mean to say you would take any girl's lover away from her,
Helena?"

"Yes, I would if I wanted him badly. But I'd do it right out before her
face. I'd never be underhand about it. I loathe deceit. I was furious
for a time with Mr. Trennahan last night, but I really believe I was
more furious because he was the most interesting man I had ever met and
I couldn't have him, than because he hadn't behaved quite properly."

Magdalena reached her right hand to a bow on her left shoulder, that
Helena should not see the sudden leap of her heart. "Do you mean to say
that you had--had intended to--to--add him to the quartette?"

"I had had a very definite idea of turning the entire quartette out in
his favour. I don't mind telling you that, because wild horses couldn't
make me so much as flirt an eyelash at him again; and of course it was
only one of my passing fancies. Nothing goes very deep with me. I'm made
on a magnificent plan. So is he. We'll both have forgotten last evening
before the end of the week. I hate the morning after a ball, don't you?
One always feels so devitalised. Wasn't Ila's gown disgracefully low?
And the way some girls roll their eyes is positively sickening. Let's go
out and get a breath of air."

XII

Two nights later Tiny had a large dinner. A place had been kept for
Trennahan. He had expected to be sent in with Magdalena,--somewhat
illogically, as no one suspected his engagement. He was sent in with
Helena.

The long low dining-room of the old house on Rincon Hill had never been
double-dated with gas fixtures. There was a large candelabra against the
dark wainscot at each end of the room, and little clusters of flame on
the table. The girls never looked so pretty, so guileless, never planted
their arrows so surely, as in this room, in the soft radiance of its wax
candles.

On Helena's other side sat Rollins, whom she honoured by regarding as a
brother. On Trennahan's left Ila was intent upon the subjugation of a
younger brother of Mr. Washington, who had recently returned to San
Francisco after six years in Europe, and had knelt at her shrine at
once. He was wealthy, and she had made up her mind to marry him.
Trennahan she had given up during the summer. Had she not, she would
have known better than to pit her charms against Helena's. Magdalena was
on the same side of