"If you will sit still for a little while, I will tell you perhaps," she said; "but, so long as you stray round the room in that aimless manner, I shall keep my communications to myself." "I beg your pardon; I did not know that I was disturbing you. Well," said Hubert, seating himself resolutely in a chair near her own, and devoting his attention apparently to the dissection of a spray of scented geranium-leaf, "tell me what is the matter, and I will listen discreetly. I am really concerned about Enid; she is neither well nor happy." "Did she tell you so?" "It is easy to be seen that she is not well," said Hubert, a very slight smile curving his lips under the heavy dark moustache as he looked down at the leaf which he was twisting in his hand; "and I think her unhappiness is quite as obvious. What is it, Flossy? You ought to know. You are the girl's chaperon, adviser, friend, or whatever you like to call it; you stand in the place----" He stopped abruptly. He forgot sometimes that ghastly story of his sister's earlier life; sometimes it came back to him with hideous distinctness. At that moment he did not like to say to Flossy, "You stand in her mother's place." And yet it was the truth. Had it been for Enid's good or harm, he suddenly wondered, that Florence had become the General's wife? "I understand what you mean," said Flossy quite sweetly, though there was no very amiable look in her velvety-brown eyes. "I assure you that I should be very glad to make more of a friend of Enid if she would allow me; but she does not like me." "Instinct!" thought Hubert involuntarily, but he did not say it aloud. With the extraordinary quickness, however, which Florence occasionally showed, she divined the purport of his reflection almost at once. "You think, no doubt, that it is natural," she said; "but I do not agree with you. Enid has no great penetration; she has never been able to read my character--which, after all, is not so bad as you imagine." "I do not imagine anything about it; I do not think it bad," Hubert interposed rather hurriedly. "You have changed very much. But have we not agreed to let old histories alone?" "I did not intend to revive them. I meant only to assure you that Enid has met with the tenderest care and guidance from me--as far, at least, as it lay in me to give it to her, and whenever she would accept it." "You make two very important reservations." "I know I do, but I cannot help it. I was never devotedly fond of children, and I was once Enid's governess. I do not think that she ever forgets that fact." "Well, come to the point," said Hubert, rather impatiently. "What is the matter with her now?"