“No—let it blow over for a day or two,” he said hastily. He most assuredly had no anxiety to meet his father. “If . . . if he forgives me he’ll only want me to come back and chuck this life. He had no right to make me look little before all those people. I suppose you’ve been to see your friend Gordon?” he sneered. “No,” she said simply, “I have been nowhere but here. I came up by the workmen’s train. Would it be a dreadful sacrifice, Ray, to give up this?” He made an impatient gesture. “It isn’t—this, my dear Ella, if by ‘this’ you mean the flat. It is my work that you and father want me to give up. I have to live up to my position.” “What is your work?” she asked. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said loftily, and her lips twitched. “It would have to be very extraordinary if I could not understand it,” she said. “Is it Secret Service work?” Ray went red. “I suppose Gordon has been talking to you,” he complained bitterly. “If that fellow sticks his nose into my affairs he is going to have it pulled!” “Why shouldn’t he?” she asked. This was a new tone in her, and one that made him stare at her. Ella had always been the indulgent, approving, excusing sister. The buffer who stood between him and his father’s reproof. “Why shouldn’t he?” she repeated. “Mr. Gordon should know something of Secret Service work—he himself is an officer of the law. You are either working lawfully, in which case it doesn’t matter what he knows, or unlawfully, and the fact that he knows should make a difference to you.” He looked at her searchingly. “Why are you so interested in Gordon—are you in love with him?” he asked. Her steady eyes did not waver, and only the faintest tinge of pink came to the skin that sleeplessness had paled. “That is the kind of question that a gentleman does not ask in such a tone,” she said quietly, “not even of his sister. Ray, you are coming back to daddy, aren’t you—to-day?” He shook his head. “No. I’m not. I’m going to write to him. I admit I did wrong. I shall tell him so in my letter. I can’t do more than that.” There came a discreet knock on the door. “Come in,” growled Ray. It was his servant, a man who came by the day. “Will you see Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady, sir?” he asked in a hoarse whisper, and glanced significantly at Ella. “Of course he’ll see me,” said a voice outside. “Why all this formality—oh, I see.” Lola Bassano’s eyes fell upon the girl seated by the window. “This is my sister—Ella, this is Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady.” Ella looked at the petite figure in the doorway, and, looking, could only admire. It was the first time they had met face to face, and she thought Lola was lovely. “Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett. I suppose you’ve come up to roast this brother of yours for his disgraceful conduct last night. Boy, you were certainly mad! It _was_ your father, Miss Bennett?” Ella nodded, and heard with gratitude the sympathetic click of Lew Brady’s lips.