He was indignant and evidently surprised to learn that the girl had his photograph; puzzled, too, to conjecture how it had come into her possession. “It must have been somehow through her brother,” he said after a moment’s thought. “But, Floy, I have never paid her any particular attention,” he added with deprecating look and tone. “I believe you fully, Espy,” she replied, with a confiding smile; “but since I have released you from your engagement to me--” “I do not accept my release,” he interrupted impulsively, “and that being the case, I am answerable to you for my conduct toward other women.” She shook her head, and was opening her lips to speak again, when the sound of approaching steps prevented. She drew hastily away from Espy’s side, and, seating herself by a window, seemed to have her attention fully occupied with something that was going on in the street. The door opened. “Miss, Mrs. Lea says you’ll please walk up now to her dressing-room.” Espy, standing before the grate with his back to the door, turned at the words and made a stride forward, his face blazing with indignation, but only to see Floy’s black skirt vanish through the door, which instantly closed between them. “What does it mean?” he asked himself half aloud; “I thought she was merely making a morning call, but that fellow spoke to her as if she were a menial like himself.” There was a sound of light laughter and gay girlish voices on the stairway, and in the hall without, the door again opened, and the smiling face of Miss Carrie Lea looked in. “The sleigh’s at the door, Mr. Alden, and we’re all ready waiting for you.” He had engaged to drive out with the ladies at that hour in Mr. Lea’s fine sleigh, behind his handsome, spirited bays; and anxious though he was beyond expression to snatch another interview with Floy by intercepting her as she should leave the house, he felt compelled to go, not being able on the spur of the moment to think of any plausible excuse. Since there was no alternative, he made the best of it; with smile and jest handed the ladies to their places, tucked the buffalo-robes carefully about them, took his seat by Carrie Lea’s side, and drove off, fervently hoping that something would occur to cause a speedy return. CHAPTER XX. A SUDDEN SUMMONS. “I tell thee life is but one common care, And man was born to suffer and to fear.”--PRIOR. Mrs. Lea’s dressing-room was gorgeous with crimson and gold; they were the prominent colors of its adornment, from the velvet carpet on the floor to the gayly-frescoed ceiling. The lady herself, arrayed in a morning robe of dark blue silk, and wearing a great quantity of heavy jewelry, reclined upon a crimson-satin-covered couch. She evidently belonged to the shoddy aristocracy, and her sallow, slightly-wrinkled face expressed nothing but supercilious pride and fretful discontent.