They walked along talking, he dealing in light badinage of a flattering kind, which both amused and disturbed her a little, and presently he turned into a somewhat secluded alley, where he found a bench sheltered and shadowed by the overhanging boughs of a tree. "Well, here is a good place for confidences." He took her hand and, seating himself, drew her down beside him. "I will pretend that you are a charming dryad, and I--what shall I be?" "My friend," she said calmly, and drew her hand away from him. "_Votre ami? Avec tout mon coeur_. I will be your best friend." He held out his hand. "Then you will do what I ask? You are also a good friend of Mrs. Wentworth?" A little cloud flitted over his face but she did not see it. "We do not speak of the absent when the present holds all we care for," he said lightly. She took no notice of this, but went on: "I do not think you would wittingly injure any one." He laughed softly. "Injure any one? Why, of course I would not--I could not. My life is spent in making people have a pleasant time--though some are wicked enough to malign me." "Well," she said slowly, "I do not think you ought to come to Cousin Louise's so often. You ought not to pay Cousin Louise as much attention as you do." "What!" He threw back his head and laughed. "You do not know what an injury you are doing her," she continued gravely. "You cannot know how people are talking about it?" "Oh, don't I?" he laughed. Then, as out of the tail of his eye he saw her troubled face, he stopped and made his face grave. "And you think I am injuring her!" She did notice the covert cynicism. "I am sure you are--unwittingly. You do not know how unhappy she is." An expression very like content stole into his dark eyes. Lois continued: "She has not been wise. She has been foolish and unyielding and--oh, I hate to say anything against her, for she has been very kind to me!--She has allowed others to make trouble between her and her husband; but she loves him dearly for all that--and--" "Oh, she does! You think so!" said Wickersham, with an ugly little gleam under his half-closed lids and a shrewd glance at Lois. "Yes. Oh, yes, I am sure of it. I know it. She adores him." "She does, eh?" "Yes. She would give the world to undo what she has done and win him back." "She would, eh?" Again that gleam in Wickersham's dark eyes as they slanted a glance at the girl's earnest face. "I think she had no idea till--till lately how people talked about her, and it was a great shock to her. She is a very proud woman, you know?" "Yes," he assented, "quite proud."