led; 'I didn't mean it seriously, of
course.'

'It seems to me,' said Althea, trying to control her labouring breath,
'that over here you take nothing quite so seriously as that--great
matches, I mean, and money.'

Gerald was silent for a moment; then, in a very courteous voice he said:
'Have I offended you in any way, Althea?'

Tears stood in her eyes; she turned away her head to hide them. 'Yes,
you have,' she said, and the sound of her voice shocked her, it so
contradicted the crying out of her disappointed heart.

But though Gerald was blind on occasions that did not seem to him to
warrant any close attention, he was clear-sighted on those that did. He
understood that something was amiss; and though her exclamation had,
indeed, made him angry for a moment, he was now sorry; he felt that she
was unhappy, and he couldn't bear people to be unhappy. 'I've done
something that displeases you,' he said, taking her hand and leaning
forward to look into her eyes, half pleading and half rallying her in
the way she knew so well. 'Do forgive me.'

She longed to put her head on his shoulder and sob: 'I wanted you to
love me'; but that would have been to abase herself too much; yet the
tears fell as she answered, trying to smile: 'It was only that you hurt
me; even in jest I cannot bear to have you say that I could have been so
sordid.'

He pressed her hand. 'I was only in fun, of course. Please forgive me.'

She knew, with all his gay solicitude, his gentle self-reproach, that
she had angered and perplexed him, that she made him feel a little at a
loss with her talk of sordidness, that, perhaps, she wearied him. And,
seeing this, she was frightened--frightened, and angry that she should
be afraid. But fear predominated, and she forced herself to smile at him
and to talk with him during the long drive, as though nothing had
happened.

CHAPTER XXII.

Some days after Gerald had gone to Merriston, Franklin Kane received a
little note from old Miss Buchanan. Helen, too, had gone to the country
until Monday, as she had told Franklin when he had asked her to see some
pictures with him on Saturday. Franklin had felt a little bereft,
especially since, hoping for her on Saturday, he had himself refused an
invitation. But he did not miss that; the invitations that poured in
upon him, like a swelling river, were sources of cheerful amusement to
him. He, too, was acquiring his little ironies and knew why they poured
in. I