rightfully jealous. Gilbert's my best friend, Cecily, but I
hated him that night. I suppose ... oh, I don't know!"

"What were you going to say!" she asked.

He looked at her intently for a few moments. Her grey eyes were full of
laughter, and he wondered whether she would answer his question
seriously.

"Well?" she said.

"Do you still love Gilbert, Cecily! Am I ... just some one to fill in
the time ... until Gilbert!..."

She sat back in her seat, and the laughter left her eyes.

"Let's go!" she said.

But he did not move. "You do love him," he persisted, "and you don't
love me...."

"Are you going to Ireland with him?" she demanded.

"Yes!"

"Very well, then!" The tightened tone of her voice indicated that there
was no more to be said, but he would not heed the warning, and persisted
in demanding explanations.

"If you go to Ireland with Gilbert," she said, "I'll never speak to you
again!"

She closed her lips firmly, and he saw the downward curve of them again,
and while he pondered on what she had said, the thought shot across his
mind that that downward curve would deepen as she grew older. "She'll
get very bad-tempered!..."

"I mean it," she said, interrupting his thought and compelling him to
pay heed to her. "I'll never speak to you again if you go away now."

"But I've promised, Cecily!" he protested.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see what that's got to do with it,"
she answered.

6

They came out of the inn, and stood for a few moments before the door.

"Shall we go back to the Heath?" he said.

"No," she replied. "Let's go home."

"Very well!"

He felt broken and crushed and tongueless. Cecily did not speak to him
as they walked towards the Spaniards' Road, nor did he speak to her. The
angry look on her face deterred him.

He hailed a taxi, and they got into it and were driven down Fitzjohn's
Avenue and homewards. Once she turned to him and said again, "Are you
going to Ireland with him?" but when he answered, "I must, Cecily, I
said I would!" she turned away again and did not speak until the taxi
drew up before her door.

"Perhaps you'd rather I didn't come in?" he said, expecting that she
would dismiss him, but she did not do so.

"Jimphy may be at home," she said, "and probably he'd like to see you!"

"I thought he'd gone away for the day!"

"He may have returned."

She went up the steps of the house while he paid the driver of the
taxi-cab, and spoke to the