“No, indeed; you were quite the woman of the world, and entertained your admirers as composedly as if you had been accustomed to such homage for many a season. Do you imagine that you would enjoy a fashionable life, Gladys?” “I think I would enjoy social life, to a certain extent, but I would not care to devote all my time to keeping up style, or to live in a fashionable whirl continually,” she replied, thoughtfully. “And yet you are eminently fitted for just that kind of a life,” Geoffrey said, thinking how few there were who could compare with her. “How so?” she asked, flushing slightly. “You are beautiful and graceful; you have winning manners and a cultivated mind; you would shine anywhere,” he answered, an earnest thrill in his voice. “Flatterer! not one of my ‘admirers,’ last night, paid me such a tribute as that,” retorted the fair girl, with a merry laugh, “and it is quite unusual, I believe, for one’s brother to be so complimentary.” “You forget, Gladys, that I am not your brother,” Geoffrey returned, gravely, and wondering that she should have spoken thus, for she had very rarely assumed that there was any kindred tie between them. She could not have told herself what made her use the word, and she remembered how she had repudiated Mr. Mapleson’s assumption of such a relationship; but somehow, though her own heart thrilled to Geoffrey’s assertion that he was not her brother, a sort of perverseness took possession of her, and she continued, in the same strain, with a half-injured air and a bewitching pout: “One would think that you were rejoiced over the fact, to remind me of it in such a way.” “I am rejoiced over the fact.” “Why, Geoff! After all these years!” and Gladys looked up in genuine surprise, for the restraint that he had been imposing upon himself had made his tone almost stern. “Yes, after all these years; Gladys,” he went on, eagerly, feeling that the supreme moment of his life had come, “can you conceive of no reason why I should be glad? As a boy, before I realized what you would become in the future, I was proud and happy to be allowed the privilege of regarding you as my sister; but as a man I exult in the fact that no kindred ties bind us to each other, for in that case I should have no right to love you as I do, and my life would be bereft of its sweetest hopes.” Gladys darted one quick, searching glance into his face as he uttered these impassioned words; then a burning blush suffused her face, and her eyes drooped in confusion before the ardent light in his.