t a coward when
it's necessary to be brave."

"I see you're not," said Ian. "You--have paid me a great compliment, and
I thank you."

"You thank me for what--precisely? For telling a fib because I wanted to
keep my friend to myself--if I could?"

"For liking me well to enough tell it."

"For liking you well enough! Yet now I've shown my liking--and my
courage, you like me less."

"No."

"You do!"

"No."

"Prove that."

"How do you want me to prove it?"

Aline's voice was thick. She felt broken, but not beaten yet. "Prove
it," she almost whispered, "by sacrificing that girl to--_our_
friendship. When we go back to the summer-house, tell her you've changed
your mind; that you'll find out at what place her mother is playing now;
and that after all you think it best to send her there at once. You
_could_ find out easily, you know! And I'd take the child myself if you
liked. I'd do that for you, if you'd do what I ask for me."

"You're only trying me, Mrs. West," said Somerled. "You don't really
wish me to fail the girl."

"Fail her! What an exaggeration. She _wants_ to go to her mother."

"At present she wants to go to her mother by motor-car."

Anger at his obstinacy and her own failure lost Aline her self-control.
"You mean you want the girl in your motor-car!" Her manner made the
words an accusation. But he took the challenge in silence, walking at
her side, his head slightly bent, his hands in his pockets. Aline darted
a glance at his profile. His jaw looked set, and he had the expression
of a man who would give anything to be smoking a cigarette.

It was too late to grope her way back to the path of tactfulness, and
the hot blood in her temples made her indifferent to his opinion, to the
future, to everything except her own anger and the need to vent it.

"Silence gives consent," she said bitterly, seeing her hopes lie broken
at her feet, but not caring much yet. Only, she knew dully that she
would care by and by, care to the sharpest point of agony. "Well, so
much for our friendship! I'm sorry. I would have done a good deal for my
part of it, but there's a limit, isn't there? And friendship can't be
all on one side. I'm afraid, if you want Miss MacDonald in your car,
you'll have to get her another chaperon. I don't engage in that
capacity."

Now there was just one last loophole open for Somerled. He could protest
that Aline had misunderstood him; that he cared not a hang or anything
of that kin