The talk between my companions grew more fitful. Silence was easier for them--silence and that dumb interchange of looks which had the sympathy of something within myself. I knew that in their eyes I was a nuisance, a thing to be got rid of. I was so in my own--but I went on eating and drinking stolidly--and sat. It was in my mind that this was my chance to be avenged on Howard Brokenshire; but I didn't want my vengeance that way. I have to confess that I was so poor-spirited as to have little or no animosity against him. I could see how easy it was for him to think of me as an adventuress. I wanted to convince and convert him, but not to make him suffer. If in any sense I could be called the guardian of his interests I would rather have been true to the trust than not. As I sat, therefore, gulping down my tea as if I relished it, it was partly because of my protective instinct toward the exquisite creature before me who might not know how to protect herself--and partly because I couldn't help it. Mr. Grainger could order me to go, but until he did I meant to go on eating. Probably because of the insistence of my presence Mrs. Brokenshire felt obliged to begin to talk again. I did my best not to listen, but fragments of her sentences came to me. "My mother spent a few weeks with us in August. I--I don't think she and--and Mr. Brokenshire get on so well." Almost for the first time he was interested in what she said rather than in her. "What's the trouble?" "Oh, I don't know--the whole thing." A long pause ensued, during which their eyes rested on each other in mute questioning. "She's changed, mamma is." "Changed in what way?" "Oh, I don't know. I--I suppose she sees that she--she--miscalculated." It was his turn to ruminate silently, and when he spoke at last it was as if throwing up to the surface but one of a deep undercurrent of thoughts. "After the pounding I got three years ago she didn't believe I'd come back." She accepted this without comment. Before speaking again she sent me another of her frightened, pleading looks. "She always liked you better than any one else." He seconded the glance in my direction as he said, with a grim smile: "Which didn't prevent her going to the highest bidder." She colored and sighed. "You wouldn't be so hard on her if you knew what a fight she had to make during papa's lifetime. We were always in debt. You knew that, didn't you? Poor mamma used to say she'd save me from that if she never--"