“Why should _he_ win?” he cried within himself, as he marked Geoffrey’s air of tender proprietorship; “he who has not even a name to offer her, while I, who am heir to the proud escutcheon of Mapleson, and to a double fortune, perhaps a triple one, if he never discovers who he is, am able to excite nothing but aversion and contempt. I _swear_ I will not submit to it, and I will find some way to part them, even now. _He_ has crossed my path too many times. I have never forgiven him on the old score, and I will never forgive him for _being an interloper in my race_.” All this was in his mind as he stood close beside the young bride-elect, while waiting for Mr. Loring’s carriage, and some evil spirit possessed him to assail her again. “Miss Huntress,” he whispered, so close to her ear that no one could possibly hear him in the tumult around them, “doubtless you have heard that old saying. ‘There is many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.’” Gladys never noticed him by so much as a glance. She might have been some beautiful statue, and deaf to all sounds, for any evidence that she gave of having heard him. And yet he knew she could not have failed to catch every word that he had uttered. His blood began to boil at being thus ignored. “Do you imagine that I shall tamely submit to see another man win you, and he so far beneath you? _It shall never be!_” Gladys turned at this, and looked straight into his eyes, and actually smiled—a smile that drove him almost to a frenzy; it was like a winter’s sunbeam reflected from ice—sharp, dazzling, chilling. “The _future tense_ is not applicable in this case, Mr. Mapleson,” she retorted, in as icy a tone, while the air with which she settled her small hand more firmly within her lover’s arm plainly said, “I am _already won_!” Everet Mapleson ground his teeth in baffled rage. It was evident that in an open battle Miss Huntress was too much for him. “Wait,” he whispered again; “the thirtieth may tell a different story; at all events, you are warned.” She did not deign to notice his threat, and, an opening now presenting itself, Mr. Loring led the way to the carriage, where, after assisting his companion to enter, Mr. Mapleson took his leave of the party and went his way. Geoffrey was very much disturbed when Gladys told him that Everet Mapleson had again presumed to address words of love to her—for she had decided that this was all the explanation of the affair at the opera that she would give him at present—and it required all her power of persuasion to prevent him from demanding an apology for the insult. “Let it pass, dear; pray let us have no trouble at this time,” she had urged. “But you are almost my wife, Gladys, and it is a terrible affront to me as well as to you,” Geoffrey returned, hotly.