that I should keep up my friendship with her."

"Then keep it up," said Doris, her cheeks aflame. "But you won't want
me to help you, Arthur."

He cried out that it was only pride and conceit that made her behave so.
In her heart of hearts, Doris mostly agreed with him. But she wouldn't
confess it, and it was presently understood between them that Meadows
would duly accept the Dunstables' invitation for August, and that Doris
would stay behind.

After which, Doris looked steadily out of the window for the rest of the
journey, and could not at all conceal from herself that she had never
felt more miserable in her life. The only person in the trio who
returned to the Kensington house entirely happy was Jane, who spent the
greater part of the day in describing to Martha, the cook-general, the
glories of Crosby Ledgers, and her own genteel appearance in Mrs.
Meadows's blouse.

PART II

CHAPTER III

During the weeks that followed the Meadowses' first visit to Crosby
Ledgers, Doris's conscience was by no means asleep on the subject of
Lady Dunstable. She felt that her behaviour in that lady's house, and
the sudden growth in her own mind of a quite unmanageable dislike, were
not to be defended in one who prided herself on a general temper of
coolness and common sense, who despised the rancour and whims of other
women, hated scenes, and had always held jealousy to be the smallest and
most degrading of passions. Why not laugh at what was odious, show
oneself superior to personal slights, and enjoy what could be enjoyed?
And above all, why grudge Arthur a woman friend?

None of these arguments, however, availed at all to reconcile Doris to
the new intimacy growing under her eyes. The Dunstables came to town,
and invitations followed. Mr. and Mrs. Meadows were asked to a large
dinner-party, and Doris held her peace and went. She found herself at
the end of a long table with an inarticulate schoolboy of seventeen, a
ward of Lord Dunstable's, on her left, and with an elderly colonel on
her right, who, after a little cool examination of her through an
eyeglass, decided to devote himself to the _debutante_ on his other
side, a Lady Rosamond, who was ready to chatter hunting and horses to
him through the whole of dinner. The girl was not pretty, but she was
fresh and gay, and Doris, tired with "much serving," envied her spirits,
her evident assumption that the world only existed for her to
laugh and ride in, her