that your remorse
seemed to me connected in a certain way with your affection; a sort of
guarantee of it? You thought you had injured some one or other, and
that seemed to be mixed up with your loving me, and therefore I let it
alone."

"Ah," said Bernard, "my remorse is all gone, and yet I think I love you
about as much as ever! So you see how wrong you were not to tell me."

"The wrong to you I don't care about. It is very true I might have told
you for Mr. Wright's sake. It would perhaps have made him look better.
But as you never attacked him for deserting me, it seemed needless for
me to defend him."

"I confess," said Bernard, "I am quite at sea about Gordon's look in
the matter. Is he looking better now--or is he looking worse? You put it
very well just now; I was attending to you, though you said I was not.
If he hoped you would refuse him, with whom is his quarrel at present?
And why was he so cool to me for months after we parted at Baden? If
that was his state of mind, why should he accuse me of inconsistency?"

"There is something in it, after all, that a woman can understand. I
don't know whether a man can. He hoped I would refuse him, and yet when
I had done so he was vexed. After a while his vexation subsided, and he
married poor Blanche; but, on learning to-day that I had accepted you,
it flickered up again. I suppose that was natural enough; but it won't
be serious."

"What will not be serious, my dear?" asked Mrs. Vivian, who had come
back to the drawing-room, and who, apparently, could not hear that the
attribute in question was wanting in any direction, without some alarm.

"Shall I tell mamma, Bernard?" said Angela.

"Ah, my dear child, I hope it 's nothing that threatens your mutual
happiness," mamma murmured, with gentle earnestness.

"Does it threaten our mutual happiness, Bernard?" the girl went on,
smiling.

"Let Mrs. Vivian decide whether we ought to let it make us miserable,"
said Bernard. "Dear Mrs. Vivian, you are a casuist, and this is a nice
case."

"Is it anything about poor Mr. Wright?" the elder lady inquired.

"Why do you say 'poor' Mr. Wright?" asked Bernard.

"Because I am sadly afraid he is not happy with Blanche."

"How did you discover that--without seeing them together?"

"Well, perhaps you will think me very fanciful," said Mrs. Vivian; "but
it was by the way he looked at Angela. He has such an expressive face."

"He looked at me very kindly, mamma," Ange