The next morning Gertie was suffering from a severe headache and did not appear at breakfast or lunch, but she was better in the afternoon and was able to walk to Edith’s boudoir, where she lay upon the couch and had her dinner brought to her. As she was about to eat it a voice said at the door: “May I come in?” and, without waiting for an answer, Godfrey entered the room. He had heard from Edith that she was there, and declining the dessert, had excused himself from the table and gone directly to her. “See, I have brought you a pond lily and a bunch of blue violets, because I remembered how much you used to like them. The violets are just the color of your eyes,” he said, as he held them so close to her that his hand touched her white cheek and sent the hot blood to it suddenly. Then, drawing his chair close to her couch, he began to talk as easily and naturally as if the sight of her, so pale and languid and sweet, were not stirring within him a wild tornado of feeling which, had he known of the answering throb in her heart, might have burst its bonds and trampled down every right of the little lady coming down the hall ostensibly to call on Gertie, but really to know for herself if Godfrey was there with her! “And so you are taking your dessert here? Really, Miss Westbrooke, I shall object to this,” Alice said, as she entered the room, trying to speak playfully, though there was that in her eyes which warned Godfrey not to provoke her too far if he would avoid a scene. Spying the lily she snatched it up, exclaiming: “The very thing I was wanting for my hair! Where did it come from?” Gertie glanced at Godfrey, who explained: “It was the only one the boy had, or I would have bought more.” “Oh, you brought it to her, then?” Alice said, dropping it as suddenly as if it had been plague-smitten, while Gertie said, entreatingly: “Please keep it, Miss Creighton, I really do not care for it.” “Neither do I, thank you;” and with a very low bow Alice left the room, waiting at the end of the hall till Godfrey saw fit to join her. There was something of a quarrel between the two lovers, who walked down the garden to a retired summer-house, where, Godfrey said, they could have it out, bidding Alice “scratch and bite like a little cat, if she wanted to.” “I don’t want to scratch nor bite, and I ain’t a little cat, but I do not think it fair in you to admire that girl so much, and take her lilies and violets and things, and you engaged to me,” Alice sobbed, while Godfrey, who knew that she really had just cause for complaint, tried to appease her, and promised not to offend again so far as Gertie was concerned. “Though I do like her,” he said, “and always shall; but I intend to be loyal to you, Allie, and mean to make you happy, and I want you to remember that, and not flare up every time I happen to look at a girl.”