be
drownin' himself. I neva wanted you should have anything to do with the
fellas that go to that woman's. There ain't any of 'em to be depended
on."

It was the first time that her growing jealousy of Miss Milray had
openly declared itself; but Clementina had felt it before, without
knowing how to meet it. As an escape from it now she was almost willing
to say, "Mrs. Lander, I want to tell you that Mr. Gregory has just been
he'a, too."

"Mr. Gregory?"

"Yes. Don't you remember? At the Middlemount? The first summa? He was
the headwaita--that student."

Mrs. Lander jerked her head round on the pillow. "Well, of all the--What
does he want, over he'a?"

"Nothing. That is--he's travelling with a pupil that he's preparing for
college, and--he came to see us--"

"D'you tell him I couldn't see him?"

"Yes"

"I guess he'd think I was a pretty changed pusson! Now, I want you
should stay with me, Clementina, and if anybody else comes--"

Maddalena entered the room with a card which she gave to the girl.

"Who is it?" Mrs. Lander demanded.

"Miss Milray."

"Of cou'se! Well, you may just send wo'd that you can't--Or, no; you
must! She'd have it all ova the place, by night, that I wouldn't let
you see her. But don't you make any excuse for me! If she asks after me,
don't you say I'm sick! You say I'm not at home."

"I've come about that little wretch," Miss Milray began, after kissing
Clementina. "I didn't know but you had heard something I hadn't, or
I had heard something you hadn't. You know I belong to the Hinkle
persuasion: I think Belsky's run his board--as Mr. Hinkle calls it."

Clementina explained how this part of the Hinkle theory had failed, and
then Miss Milray devolved upon the belief that he had run his tailor's
bill or his shoemaker's. "They are delightful, those Russians, but
they're born insolvent. I don't believe he's drowned himself. How,"
she broke off to ask, in a burlesque whisper, "is-the-old-tabby?" She
laughed, for answer to her own question, and then with another sudden
diversion she demanded of a look in Clementina's face which would not be
laughed away, "Well, my dear, what is it?"

"Miss Milray," said the girl, "should you think me very silly, if I told
you something--silly?"

"Not in the least!" cried Miss Milray, joyously. "It's the final proof
of your wisdom that I've been waiting for?"

"It's because Mr. Belsky is all mixed up in it," said Clementina, as
if some excuse were nec