“You do not know Mr. Kyrle as well as I do, my dear,” said Fanny, complacently. “He will be quite certain to ask me whenever he has a chance. I only hope he may not have a chance soon. I hope you told him that he must go away at once?” “No,” answered Aimée, “I did not tell him anything of the kind. In the first place, you never told me to do so, and, in the second place, I would not if you had. It was bad enough to bring him here only to disappoint him. You have no right to order him to go away.” “Upon my word, you seem to espouse Mr. Kyrle’s cause very warmly!” said Fanny. “Right or no right, I wish I had sent him word to go away at once. It would be terrible if he stopped here and met Mr. Meredith.” “It would not surprise him,” said Aimée. “As soon as I told him that you said he must not attempt to see you, he exclaimed, ‘Then there is another lover!’” “Did he?” said Fanny, with a laugh. “How like him! He always had that kind of penetration. One might try to deceive him, but he would go straight to the root of the matter. But then, of course, jealousy helped him in this case. He knows me well enough to be sure that, if I had not somebody else, I would not want him to go away.” “So it is not _him_--it is just somebody--that you want,” said Aimée, indignantly. “Not exactly,” replied Fanny. “But you are a child--you don’t understand.” “I should be sorry to think that I would ever understand such heartlessness,” said Aimée. “Your sympathies must have been greatly wrought upon by Lennox,” said Miss Berrien, composedly. “It is not surprising; I know how he can influence one. Ah, I shall never have such another lover! You may think me heartless, and, luckily for myself, I am not very much troubled with my heart, but if I chose to let myself go, I could be as desperate about Lennox Kyrle as--as he is about me. If his rich uncle would only die and leave him a fortune--But there is no hope of that.” “If he has a rich uncle, why is there no hope of his dying and leaving a fortune?” asked Aimée. “Oh, he will die some day--no fear about _that_,” said Fanny, vindictively, “and he will leave a fortune of a million or two. But poor Lennox will not get it. That is all hopelessly settled. The old wretch has made his will in the most elaborate form, and left his money to found some kind of an institute that is to bear his name and have his statue. It is all a miserable piece of vanity and self-glorification; but he will be called a ‘public benefactor,’ and all that stuff, after ruining Lennox’s life--and mine.” “I don’t think he will ruin yours,” said Aimée; “but poor Mr. Kyrle, what will he do?” Fanny shook her head in a way to intimate that this gentleman’s prospects were dark indeed.