“Look ’ere, ’Arriet!” she said to the girl, who was working herself up into a fever, “it’s no use going on like this! ’E’ll come or ’e won’t come! Most likely you’ll see ’im to-morrow or next day, and if not, it’ll be because ’is sister won’t let ’im leave ’er, and the poor young man doesn’t know what excuse to make! Couldn’t you see ’ow that Doctor Phillips was set against the Captain joining us? ’E went most likely and told Mrs. Pullen, and she ’as dissuaded her brother from coming to Brussels. It’s ’ard for a man to go against ’is own relations, you know!” “But he should have written,” pleaded Harriet, “it makes me look a fool!” “Not a bit of it! Captain Pullen thinks you no fool. ’E’s more likely to be thinking ’imself one. And, after all, you know, we shall be going back to ’Eyst in a couple more days, and then you can ’ave ’im all to yourself in the evenings and scold ’im to your ’eart’s content!” But the girl was not made of the stuff that is amenable to reason. She pouted and raved and denounced Ralph Pullen like a fury, declaring she would not speak to him when they met again,--yet lay awake at night all the same, wondering what had detained him from her side, and longing with the fierceness of a tigress for blood, to feel his lips against her own and to hear him say that he adored her. Bobby Bates stood by during this tempestuous time, very sorrowful and rather perplexed. He was not admitted to the confidence of his mother and her young friend, so that he did not quite understand why Harriet Brandt should have so suddenly changed from gay to grave, just because Captain Pullen was unable to keep his promise to join them at Brussels. He had so enjoyed her company hitherto and she had seemed to enjoy his, but now she bore the gloomiest face possible, and it was no pleasure to go out with her at all. He wondered if all girls were so--as capricious and changeable! Bobby had not seen much of women. He had been kept in the schoolroom for the better part of his life, and his Mamma had not impressed him with a great admiration for the sex. So, naturally, he thought Harriet Brandt to be the most charming and beautiful creature he had ever seen, though he was too shy to whisper the truth, even to himself. He tried to bring back the smiles to her face in his boyish way, and the gift of an abnormally large and long _sucre de pomme_ really did achieve that object better than anything else. But the defalcation of Captain Pullen made them all lose their interest in Brussels, and they returned to Heyst a day sooner than they had intended.