Mr. Avery replaced the note in his pocket, and smiled contentedly. "I don't care a great deal what the fellows at the club say," he repeated. "I'm satisfied, if Gertrude--" He had spoken the last few words almost audibly, and the name startled him. He realized for the first time that he had fallen into the habit of thinking of her as Gertrude, and it suddenly flashed upon him that Miss Foster might be a good deal surprised by that fact if she knew it. He fell to wondering if she would also be annoyed. There was a tinge of anxiety in the speculation. Then it occurred to him that the sewing class of the Guild might give an outlet and a chance for a bit of pleasure to that strange girl he had seen at Grady's Pavilion, and he made a little memorandum, and decided to call upon Gertrude and suggest it to her. He fell asleep that night and dreamed of Gertrude Foster, holding out a helping hand to a strange, tall girl, with dissatisfied eyes, and that Ettie Berton was laughing gaily and making everybody comfortable, by asserting that she liked everything exactly as she found it. VI The next evening Avery called upon Gertrude to thank her for her letter, and, incidentally, to tell her of the experience at Grady's Pavilion, and bespeak the good office of the Guild for those two human pawns, who had, somehow, weighed upon his heart. Avery was not a Churchman himself, but he felt very sure that any Guild which would throw Gertrude Foster's influence about less fortunate girls, would be good, so he gave very little thought to the phase of it which was not wholly related to the personality of the young woman in whose eyes he had grown to feel he must appear well and worthy, if he retained his self-respect. This bar of judgment had come, by unconscious degrees, to be the one before which he tried his own cases for and against himself. "Would Gertrude like it if she should know? Would I dislike to have her know that I did this or felt that?" was now so constantly a part of his mental processes, that he had become quite familiar with her verdicts, which were most often passed--from his point of view, and in his own mind--without the knowledge of the girl herself. He had never talked of love to her, except in the general and impersonal fashion of young creatures who are wont to eagerly discuss the profound perplexities of life without having come face to face with one of them. One day they had talked of love in a cottage. The conversation had been started by the discussion of a new novel they had just read, and Avery told her of a strange fellow whom he knew, who had married against the wishes of his father, and had been disinherited.