t you would discuss me with a stranger."

She knew herself properly reproved, and she reproached herself, not for
what she had actually said to Kerr of Harry--that had been trivial
enough--but for that wayward impulse she had to confide in this
clear-eyed, whimsical stranger, as it had never occurred to her to
confide in Harry.

She raised her eyes. "Certainly I shall not discuss you with him."

"Is that a promise?"

"Harry, how you do dislike him!"

"Well, suppose I do?" he shrugged.

"You've used up twice your twenty minutes," she said, "and Clara will be
scandalized."

He stopped the caressing movement of his hand on her hair. "Are you
afraid of Clara?" he asked.

"Mercy, yes!" She was half in earnest and half laughing. "But then I'm
afraid of every one."

He put his arm affectionately around her. "But not of me?"

"Oh," she told him, "you're a great big purring pussy-cat, and I am your
poor little mouse."

He thought this reply immensely witty, and Flora thought what a great
boy he was, after all.

"Now, really, you must go home," she urged, trying to rise.

"But look here," he protested, still on the arm of her chair, "there's
another thing I want to ask you about." And by the tip of one finger he
lifted her left hand shining with rings. "You will have to have another
one of these, you know. It's been on my mind for a week. Is there any
sort you haven't already?"

She held up her hand to the light and fluttered its glitter.

"Any one that you gave me would be different from the others, wouldn't
it?" she asked prettily.

"Oh, that's very nice of you, Flora, but I want to find you something
new. When shall we look for it? To-morrow, in the morning?"

"Yes, I should love it," she answered, but with no particular
enthusiasm, for the idea of shopping with Harry, and shopping at
Shrove's, did not present a wide field of possibility. "But I have a
luncheon to-morrow," she added, "so we must make it as early as ten."

"Oh, you two!"

At Clara's mildly reproving voice so close beside them both started like
conspirators. They had not heard her come in, yet there she was, just
inside the doorway, still wrapped in her cloak. But there was none of
the impetus of arrested motion in her attitude. She stood at repose as
if she might have waited not to interrupt them.

"Don't scold Flora," said Harry, rising. "It's my fault. She sent me
away half an hour ago. But it is so comfortable here!"

Flora couldn