lows propping her up, all blue silk, and
lovely muslin embroideries; and she did look such a sweet, cosey thing
among it all, her dark hair in fluffs round her face, and an angelic lace
cap over it. She was smoking a cigarette, and writing numbers of letters
with a gold stylograph pen. The blue silk quilt was strewn with
correspondence, and newspapers, and telegraph forms. And her garment was
low-necked, of course, and thin like mine. I wondered what Alexander would
have thought if he could have seen her in contrast to Mary. I know which I
would choose if I were a man.

"Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed, looking up, and puffing smoke clouds.
"Sit on the bye-bye, snake-girl. I felt I must rescue you from the hoard
of holies below, and I wanted to look at you in the daylight. Yes, you
have extraordinary hair, and real eyelashes and complexion, too. You are a
witch thing, I can see, and we shall all have to beware of you."

I smiled. She did not say it rudely, or I should have been uppish at once.
She has a wonderful charm.

"You don't speak much, either," she continued. "I feel you are dangerous.
That is why I am being so civil to you; I think it wisest. I can't stand
girls as a rule." And she went into one of her ripples of laughter. "Now
say you will not hurt me."

"I should not hurt any one," I said. "Unless they hurt me first, and I
like you, you are so pretty."

"That is all right," she said. "Then we are comrades. I was frightened
about Robert last evening, because I am so attached to him; but you were a
darling after dinner, and it will be all right now. I told him you would
probably marry Malcolm Montgomerie, and he was not to interfere."

"I shall do nothing of the kind!" I exclaimed, moving off the bed. "I
would as soon die as spend the rest of my life here at Tryland."

"He will be fabulously rich one day, you know, and you could get round
pere Montgomerie in a trice, and revolutionize the whole place. You had
better think of it."

"I won't," I said, and I felt my eyes sparkle. She put up her hands as if
to ward off an evil spirit, and she laughed again. "Well, you sha'n't
then. Only don't flash those emeralds at me; they give me quivers all
over."

"Would _you_ like to marry Malcolm?" I asked and I sat down again. "Fancy
being owned by that! Fancy seeing it every day! Fancy living with a person
who never sees a joke from week's end to week's end! Oh!"

"As for that--" and she puffed smoke. "Husband