“She is a strange girl—a girl who could live in closest friendship with me all this time, and never tell me the secret of her past life,” said Miss Newton thoughtfully. “Why she should be so perverse in her refusal of Lord Cheriton’s offer I can’t imagine—but you may depend she has a reason.” * * * * * Theodore escorted Lady Cheriton back to Dorsetshire by the afternoon train, but they parted company at Wareham Station, he going on to Dorchester, where his sisters received him with some wonderment at his restlessness. “It is rather a farce for you and Mr. Ramsay to make engagements which you never intend to keep,” said Sophia peevishly; and it was thereupon expounded to him that he and his friend had pledged themselves to be present at a certain tennis party upon the previous afternoon. “I’m very sorry we both forgot all about it,” he apologized, “but I don’t suppose we were missed.” “I don’t suppose you would have been,” answered his sister sulkily, “if there had been half a dozen decent young men at the party; but as Harrington preferred the office to our society or our friends, and as there were only three curates and one banker’s clerk at Mrs. Hazledean’s, you and Mr. Ramsay would at least have been _something_.” “It is hardly worth any man’s while to endure an afternoon’s boredom—to fetch and carry teacups in a sweltering sun, and play tennis upon an unlevel lawn, if he is only to count for _something_, a mere make-weight.” “Oh, you young men give yourselves such abominable airs nowadays,” retorted Sophy, with a manner which implied that the young men of former generations had been modesty incarnate. “As for your friend, he has made a mere convenience of this house.” “As how, Sophy?” “I don’t think the fact requires explanation. First he goes to the Priory, and then to Cheriton, and then he is off to London, and then he is to be back on Saturday in order to lunch at the Priory on Sunday. If that is not making an hotel of your father’s house I don’t know what is.” “Perhaps I have been too unceremonious, forgetting that I no longer live here, that it behoves me now, perhaps, to act in all things as a visitor. It was I who made the engagements, Sophy. You must not be angry with Ramsay.” “I am not angry. It cannot matter to me how Mr. Ramsay treats this house. No doubt he thinks himself a great deal too clever for our society, although we are not _quite_ so feather-headed as most girls. He finds metal more attractive at the Priory.” “What do you mean, Sophy?” “That he is over head and ears in love with Juanita. It does not need a very penetrating person to discover that.” “What nonsense! Why, he has not seen her above three times.” “Quite enough for a young man of his vehement character.” “What can have put such an idea into your head?”