“I’ll wait for years,” Tom answered, with a heaving of his broad chest and a feeling that Rena was as absolutely his as if her word had been pledged to him. After that it seemed easier to tell Rex. “Let him give me his confidence and my way will be clear,” Tom thought; and as just then Irene appeared in the door and came toward them the conversation between him and Rena ceased. After that matters drifted as matters usually do where four young people are concerned, two as good as engaged, one trying her best to be engaged, and the other not knowing what he wanted or ought to do. There were drives along the pleasant country roads, rambles in the woods, calls at Mrs. Parks’, and five o’clock teas at the McPherson place, where Irene was looked upon by Colin as the future mistress of the house. Greatly to the disgust of the old man, Reginald gave no special sign of coming to the point. He was very polite to Irene, who in all the drives and rambles fell to him naturally, and was never more fascinating and womanly than now when trying her best to enslave him. Sometimes she thought she gained a little, especially as he consulted her once with regard to some change Colin thought of making in the greenhouse, and again about the removal of a tree which obstructed the view from the window of his room. As a whole, however, he was always a quiet, reserved and taciturn man, following obediently where she led and leaving the most of the talking to her. No allusion to the will was ever made, nor did she mean there should be for the present, if she could help it. “If he does speak of it I must either tell the truth, or feign entire ignorance, and so exonerate myself from all blame, trusting that neither Rena nor Tom will betray me,” she thought, and with this conclusion she kept steadily on, bending every energy and every art to the accomplishment of her purpose. Just what Rex thought of her he hardly knew himself. He was far more at ease with her now than he had been at first. Once he had perpetrated some joke upon her, and once when a hairpin had fallen from her heavy braids, he had picked it up and rather awkwardly fastened it in its place, making some remark as he did so about the quality and quantity of her hair and asking her how long it was. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, putting her hands to her head to see if her false braids were in place and wondering what he would say if he knew how much she took off at night.