"Somebody seems to have been cramming Evelyn with ridiculous tales, and she's been spreading them. I must have it out with her." "I expect there is a good deal in them," said Julie. Then, unexpectedly, she raised her eyes and gave him a long and rather strange look. "Why do you dislike having servants and being waited upon so much, I wonder? Is it--you won't be angry?--that you have such a strong will, and you do these things to tame it?" Delafield made a sudden movement, and Julie had no sooner spoken the words than she regretted them. "So you think I should have made a jolly tyrannical slave-owner?" said Delafield, after a moment's pause. Julie bent towards him with a charming look of appeal--almost of penitence. "On the contrary, I think you would have been as good to your slaves as you are to your friends." His eyes met hers quietly. "Thank you. That was kind of you. And as to giving orders, and getting one's way, don't suppose I let Chudleigh's estate go to ruin! It's only"--he hesitated--"the small personal tyrannies of every day that I'd like to minimize. They brutalize half the fellows I know." "You'll come to them," said Julie, absently. Then she colored, suddenly remembering the possible dukedom that awaited him. His brow contracted a little, as though he understood. He made no reply. Julie, with her craving to be approved--to say what pleased--could not leave it there. "I wish I understood," she said, softly, after a moment, "what, or who it was that gave you these opinions." Getting still no answer, she must perforce meet the gray eyes bent upon her, more expressively, perhaps, than their owner knew. "That you shall understand," he said, after a minute, in a voice which was singularly deep and full, "whenever you choose to ask." Julie shrank and drew back. "Very well," she said, trying to speak lightly. "I'll hold you to that. Alack! I had forgotten a letter I must write." And she pretended to write it, while Delafield buried himself in the newspapers. XIII