s just starting," he answered apologetically, "when I met Ives.
But, as you weren't going with him----" He paused, an inquiring look
in his eyes. He was evidently asking himself why she had not gone with
the curate.

"I'd rather be left alone, if you don't mind," said she. And then,
flushing red again, she added. "I changed my mind and refused to go
with Mr. Ives. So he went off to get Mrs. Wentworth instead."

I started. Newhaven looked at her for an instant, and then turned on
his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning, and with her face all
aflame.

"If you tell, I'll never speak to you again," she whispered.

After this there was silence for some minutes.

"Well?" she said, without looking at me.

"I have no remark to offer, Miss Queenborough," I returned.

"I suppose that was a lie, wasn't it?" she asked defiantly.

"It's not my business to say what it was," was my discreet answer.

"I know what you're thinking."

"I was thinking," said I, "which I would rather be--the man you will
marry, or the man you would like----"

"How dare you! It's not true. Oh Mr. Wynne, indeed it's not true!"

Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had been, Miss
Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very much in the way
in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to be extravagantly
attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was present, and markedly
neglectful of him in the curate's absence. It also fitted in very well
with the theory which I had ventured to hint that her bearing toward
Mrs. Wentworth was distinguished by a stately civility, and her remarks
about that lady by a superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two
distinguishing marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my
favorite books and learn from them--more folly. And if Trix's manners
were all that they should be, praise no less high must be accorded to
Mrs. Wentworth's; she attained an altitude of admirable unconsciousness
and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language forces me to the
word, but it is over-flippant) with the curate in a staid,
quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said that she
was intensely interested in all his aims and hopes.

"What does she want?" I asked Dora despairingly. "She can't want to
marry him." I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs.
Wentworth.

"Good gracious, no!" answered Dora, irritably. "It's simple jealousy.
She won't l