"I can not eat," sighed Dorothy, and she murmured under her breath: "Yes, they forgot me--forgot me! Come here, my good girl," she went on, very nervously; "there is something I want you to do for me." Katy came close to her side. Dorothy reached out her hand and caught the girl's arm in her trembling grasp. "I want you to slip down quietly, Katy," she said--"mind, very quietly--and see what they are doing down in the drawing-room. I hear Mr. Kendal's voice and Miss Vincent's. Take notice if Mrs. Kemp is with them, or if they are alone." "Are you going down to-night, Miss Dorothy?" asked Katy. "If it isn't too late," she answered, in a tremulous voice, adding: "I want you to lay out the prettiest dress I have, and some nice ribbon for my hair, before you go. I can be dressing while you are gone; it will save that much time." Katy did as she was bid, and a few moments later was creeping noiselessly down the back stairway, which led to the drawing-room. Drawing the heavy silken _portieres_ aside, she peered cautiously in. As she expected, Mr. Kendal and Miss Vincent were enjoying each other's society, quite alone. But that was not the worst of it. CHAPTER XVII. Katy gazed long and earnestly at the picture before her. Miss Vincent sat at the piano, magnificently dressed in a pale blue chiffon evening dress, with great clusters of pink roses at her belt, at her throat, and in the meshes of her jetty curls. Beside her, turning over the music, and bending like a lover over her, was Harry Kendal. And as the girl watched she saw him suddenly lift to his lips the little white hand that was straying over the keys. "Do let me persuade you to sing for me, Iris," he was saying. "In what have I so far offended you that you are so ungracious to me this evening, Iris?" he murmured, reproachfully. "I do not know that I am any different to-night from what I have always been," pouted the beauty. "I simply do not feel like singing, that is all." "You have changed your mood very suddenly, Iris," he declared. "You asked me to come into the drawing-room to hear you sing, and now you tell me that you have changed your mind. What am I to think?" "Whatever you please," she answered, curtly. "Tell me one thing, Iris," he murmured, a little hoarsely, bending nearer over the pretty, willful coquette; "were the words of the song you intended to sing suggestive of a sudden coldness between two very near and very dear friends?" "I will not listen to you!" cried Iris, petulantly. "I repeat, what have I done to offend you, my dear girl?" he cried. "Say to yourself that it was surely not my intention nor my will. You asked me to come to the library to listen to some poems. When I stepped into the room I saw at a glance that you had quite forgotten the appointment, Harry, by the picture that met my glance." He knew in an instant to what she referred--he sitting in the arm-chair with Dorothy by his side, her arms twined about him.