s sitting on the terrace, ready booted and breeched, waiting for my
horse to be brought round. Trix came out and sat down by me.

"Where's Newhaven?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't always want Lord Newhaven!" she exclaimed petulantly. "I
sent him off for a walk--I'm going out in the Canadian canoe with Mr.
Ives."

"Oh, you are, are you?" said I, smiling. As I spoke, Jack Ives ran up
to us.

"I say, Miss Queenborough," he cried, "I've just got your message
saying you'd let me take you on the lake."

"Is it a great bore?" asked Trix, with a glance--a glance that meant
mischief.

"I should like it awfully, of course," said Jack; "but the fact is I've
promised to take Mrs. Wentworth--before I got your message, you know."

Trix drew herself up.

"Of course, if Mrs. Wentworth----" she began.

"I'm very sorry," said Jack.

Then Miss Queenborough, forgetting--as I hope--or choosing to disregard
my presence, leaned forward and asked, in her most coaxing tones:

"Don't you ever forget a promise, Mr. Ives?"

Jack looked at her. I suppose her dainty prettiness struck him afresh,
for he wavered and hesitated.

"She's gone upstairs," pursued the tempter, "and we shall be safe away
before she comes down again."

Jack shuffled with one foot on the gravel.

"I tell you what," he said; "I'll ask her if she minds me taking you
for a little while before I----"

I believe he really thought that he had hit upon a compromise
satisfactory to all parties. If so, he was speedily undeceived. Trix
flushed red and answered angrily:

"Pray don't trouble. I don't want to go."

"Perhaps afterward you might," suggested the curate, but now rather
timidly.

"I'm going out with Lord Newhaven," said she. And she added, in an
access of uncontrollable annoyance. "Go, please go. I--I don't want
you."

Jack sheered off, with a look of puzzled shamefacedness. He
disappeared into the house. Nothing passed between Miss Trix and
myself. A moment later Newhaven came out.

"Why, Miss Queenborough," said he, in apparent surprise, "Ives is going
with Mrs. Wentworth in the canoe!"

In an instant I saw what she had done. In rash presumption she had
told Newhaven that she was going with the curate--and now the curate
had refused to take her--and Ives had met him in search of Mrs.
Wentworth. What could she do? Well, she rose--or fell--to the
occasion. In the coldest of voices she said:

"I thought you'd gone for your walk."

"I wa