inst the
friend more fiercely than ever.

"My dear, I can't think why you have him to stay with you. He hates your
being engaged to me...."

"Oh, nonsense!" Guy interrupted, rather crossly.

"He does, he does; and he hates your staying down here. He says Plashers
Mead is ruining you, and that you ought to go to London. Now, you see, I
know why you want to go there."

"Really, Pauline, you're talking nonsense. I'm going to London because
I'm positive that your father and mother both think I ought to go. And
I'm positive myself that I ought to go. I've been wrong to stay here all
this time. I've done nothing to help forward our marriage. Look how
nervous and ... how nervous and overwrought you've become. It's all my
fault."

"How I hate that friend of yours!"

Guy looked up in astonishment at the fervor of her tone.

"And how he hates me," she went on.

"Oh, really, my dear child, you are ridiculous," Guy exclaimed,
petulantly. "Are you going to take up this attitude towards all my
friends? You're simply horridly jealous, that's the whole matter."

Pauline did not quarrel now, because she thought it might gratify
Michael Fane to see the discord he had created, but she treasured up
her anger and knew that, when later she and Guy were alone, she would
say whatever hard things now rested unsaid. Next morning Guy asked her
if she would be very cross to hear that he was going to town for a
night.

"With your friend?" she asked.

He nodded, and she turned away from him clouded blue eyes.

"It _is_ unfair of you to hate Michael," he pleaded. "I told him you
thought he was cold, and he said at once, 'Do tell her I'm not cold, and
say how lovely I think her.' He said you were very lovely and strange
... a fairy's child."

Still Pauline would not turn her head.

"I told him that you were indeed a fairy's child," Guy went on, "and I
told him how sometimes I felt I should go off my head with the
responsibility your happiness was to me. For indeed, Pauline, it is, it
is a responsibility."

She felt she must yield when Guy spoke like that, but then,
unfortunately, he began to talk about his friend again, and sullen
jealousy returned.

"Listen, Pauline, I'm going up to town because Michael wants me to see
this girl he is going to marry. He was rather pathetic about her. It
seems that ... well ... it's a sort of misalliance, and his people are
angry about it, and really I must be loyal and go up to town and help
hi