"I didn't look for it, and that's a fact!" he said. "After all these years too! I don't believe she knows what she's doing. She's enamoured with her new surroundings here. I wish—if I may say so—that you had never discovered her. If she and Waddy had been alone in London lodgings, she would have turned to me with joy. But she's crazed about this car of hers, and the little house and the organ. She'll find me wanting soon. I shan't give up hope. I shall be utterly silent to her, and perhaps after a time, she'll want to hear of me. I never shall marry anyone else, I know that." Mrs. Wharnecliffe tried to comfort him. She ordered the car to take him to the station, and felt a little vexed with Gentian; but at the same time her instinct told her that the girl was right, for her heart was not Jim's. It still remained untouched. When Gentian came in, it was to find that Jim had gone. She looked rather blank when Mrs. Wharnecliffe gave her the news. "What an awful hurry he was in! I quite meant to wish him good-bye properly and to part friends. But perhaps it is best as it is." "How did the practice go off?" "Oh, it was lovely! The organ is a gem, and I found it quite easy to play, and the small boys were such dears, and there's quite an old man who comes with them and sings the deepest bass, and keeps saying: 'We b'aint in 'armony!'" She gave an animated account of her doings, and seemed to forget Jim. But she was very quiet and pensive at dinner, and went to the piano afterwards, and played such dreary dirges, that at last Mrs. Wharnecliffe begged her to stop. "It's to mark the burial of my friendship with Jim, and all his hopes and mine. I really feel as if he has died. It is like it to me. He says he will never see me again unless I send for him, and I shall never do that." "I hope you do not regret having sent him away." "Of course I do!" she said passionately. "You can't give up a friend without feeling it. You have made me do it. You and he together. I could not marry him, but lots of girls have men friends, and I call him selfish to leave me for ever like this." "I think you are selfish to accept his love and attentions when you know you do not mean to make him happy." "I am very, very selfish," said Gentian in a humble tone; "I always have been. But if he was unselfish, he would not wish to force me against my liking to marry him. Shut up with Jim all my life! Oh, I couldn't live! I should die. It would be dreadful!" Then she slipped her arm through Mrs. Wharnecliffe's with a wistful smile up at her. "Oh, do love me and be kind to me I have forsaken Jim, for you and Cousin Thorold. Perhaps you would rather I had married him, so as to get rid of me. I feel sure that Cousin Thorold wanted me to do it. But I won't burden you with the care of me. When I get Waddy again, I shall be quite independent, and so busy that I shall have no time to come and see you." Mrs. Wharnecliffe kissed her.