“What are you going to do?” she repeated in a voice as sweet and as full of dramatic expression as her eyes. “If you have promised to go to-night, how can you break your promise?” “Breaking my promise does not matter at all,” said Fanny Berrien, impatiently; “but getting rid of Lennox Kyrle without trouble does matter. And how it is to be done I do not know, unless you will help me.” “I will do anything--anything in the world!” said Aimée, fervently. “But how can you make up your mind to give him up?” “It does not exactly mean giving him up,” said Fanny, “though I suppose it will come to that at last,” she added with a sigh. “But _just now_ I only want him to understand that it is quite impossible for me to go with him. He is so impetuous and rash, he will not understand at all how I am placed; and if I do not meet him at the time when he expects me, he will be quite capable of coming for me--as he has threatened to do--and then there _would_ be a fearful state of affairs!” “He must be like young Lochinvar,” said Aimée. “I should think you would adore such a lover as that.” “He has given me more trouble than any other man in the world, so I suppose I ought to adore--or else hate him,” said Miss Berrien. “Of course, you don’t understand about these things, Aimée, and I ought not to be talking of them to a child like you, only I have nobody else to talk to; but Lennox Kyrle is one of the men to whom one can’t say no. He has more power over me than any one else in the world, and yet I am not at all sure that I want to marry him.” “Why not?” asked Aimée, who was drinking in these new ideas as a plant absorbs water. “Oh, for a great many reasons,” replied the other. “For one thing, I am not sure that I want to be domineered over for the rest of my life; and then he has nothing in the way of fortune--at least nothing to speak of. Now, Aimée, you know it is not at all pleasant to want money and not have any.” “No,” said Aimée decidedly--she evidently understood this--“it is not at all pleasant.” “And Mr. Meredith is rich, and will be richer; and he is devoted to me, and mamma is anxious that I shall marry him, and I like him very well--when I don’t see Lennox! So I have nearly made up my mind not to see him any more.” There was a pause. Aimée felt that this was a very unheroine-like decision, a lame and impotent conclusion for a romance; but she did not know what to say, being somewhat confused by the multiplicity of new ideas presented to her consideration. “At all events, I can not go to-night, though I was mad enough to promise him that I would,” pursued the young lady desperately. “And I can not see him; if I did, I _should_ go. I am ashamed to think how little will of my own I have when I am with him--in fact, I have none at all. He simply makes me do whatever he likes. So I dare not go to meet him, and this brings me to the point I have been trying to reach all this time--will you go for me?”