ent of his
going Avery found she liked him better than she had liked him
throughout the interview, for she knew quite well that he went only in
deference to her wish.

She turned to retrace her steps, feeling puzzled. There was something
curiously attractive about the young man's personality, something that
appealed to her, yet that she felt disposed to resist. That air of the
ancient Roman was wonderfully compelling, too compelling for her taste,
but then his boyishness counteracted it to a very great degree. There was
a hint of sweetness running through his arrogance against which she was
not proof. Audacious he might be, but it was a winning species of
audacity that probably no woman could condemn. She thought to herself as
she returned to her charges that she had never seen a face so faultlessly
patrician and yet so vividly alive. And following that thought came
another that dwelt longer in her mind. Deprived of its animation, it
would not have been a happy face.

Avery wondered why.

CHAPTER VI

THE RACE

"Hooray! No more horrid sums for a whole month!" Gracie Lorimer's
arithmetic-book soared to the ceiling and came down with a bang while
Gracie herself pivoted, not ungracefully, on her toes till sheer
giddiness and exhaustion put an end to her rhapsody. Then she staggered
to Avery who was darning the family stockings by the window and flung
ecstatic arms about her neck.

"Dear Mrs. Denys, aren't you glad it's holidays?" she gasped. "We'll give
you such a lovely time!"

"I'm sure you will, dear," said Avery. "But do mind the needle!"

She kissed the brilliant childish face that was pressed to hers. She and
Gracie were close friends. Gracie was eleven, and the prettiest madcap of
them all. It was a perpetual marvel to Avery that the child managed to be
so happy, for she was continually in trouble. But she seemed to possess a
cheery knack of throwing off adversity. She was essentially gay of heart.

"Do put away those stupid old stockings and come out with us!" she
begged, still hanging over Avery. "Don't you hate darning? I do. We had
to do our own before you came. I was very naughty one day last summer. I
went out and played in the garden instead of mending my stockings, and
Father found out." Gracie cast up her eyes dramatically. "He sent me in
to do them, and went off to one of his old parish parties; and I just
sneaked out as soon as his back was turned and went on with the game. But
there was